Having had his fingered burnt by the decision, taken by then Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers, not to sell Dedryck Boyata to Fulham in the 2018 summer transfer window, Peter Lawwell is unlikely to fall into the same trap anytime soon.
The reason that £12million was allowed to slip away was the significant tension that had developed between the Celtic CEO and the current manager of Leicester City. These days Lawwell and his managerial team all apparently see eye-to-eye and any differences of opinion will be minor in comparison to all of those shenanigans.
Boyata ended up seeing out his contract and then headed to Hertha Berlin, where he is now club captain, on a free transfer. That was a real financial sore one for Celtic to take.
When all that was going on Ryan Christie was very much on the fringe of things at Celtic under Brendan Rodgers. He had been loaned out to Aberdeen for two spells and did very well for Derek McInnes but the truth is that the £500,000 signing from Inverness Caley Thistle was way down the pecking order alongside Scott Allan as Ronny Delia signings that Brendan Rodgers didn’t really fancy.
That incidentally remains the case to this day with the rumours that Rodgers was interested in signing Christie in the summer window apparently being without any substance. The Leicester City boss was apparently interested in Odsonne Edouard – who he rates highly – but not Christie who he apparently doesn’t consider to be at the level he’s looking for at Leicester. So we heard anyway.
Christie last week dropped out of contention for the Glasgow Derby alongside former Celtic Star Kieran Tierney after another ex-Celt, Stuart Armstrong tested positive for COVID-19. The three had being playing on computer game apparently and that would have given the chance to talk about life at different ends of the English Premier League.
Armstrong for instance left Celtic (for around £6million) where his basic wage was around £15k a week to join Southampton where he’s on £50k per week. Tierney after a £25million transfer from Celtic to Arsenal will be on even more. It seems that Ryan Christie fancies a bit of that financial action for himself, which is fair enough.
What he can’t expect though is for Celtic to allow him to “do a Boyata” and that’s something that Peter Lawwell will be determined to avoid. Once bitten and all that.
Christie’s dad Charlie started the ball rolling on all of this in the summer in an interview with Glasgow Times which we covered at the time. He reckoned that his son should have been a contender for Player of the Year last year (all the various awards went to Edouard) as his son had scored 20 goals in the season from midfield, despite having had a few injuries. He also hinted that his boy already had an eye on playing in the English Premier League and reckoned he was good enough to do well down there.
That article didn’t sit too well with a Celtic support who were being asked to fork out considerable sums of money for season tickets without any real prospect of seeing much action and this season there has clearly been a section of the now online support who are unhappy with the Highlander and his apparent selfishness in matches. Some reckon he’s been playing for himself probably trying to win a move.
Before that happened Christie was sent off at Livingston in early October 2019 for a late, studs showing tackle. Fair enough, these things happen in the game and a red card was just about the right call. The Celtic support was disappointed at losing the game 2-0 and as always happens a few on social media would have taken it out on the players. Jullien was getting it for being ‘rag-dolled’ by Dykes and Christie was criticised for getting sent off.
READ THIS…Celtic Da’ Hits Back at Trolls – ‘Ryan is an easy target,’ Charlie Christie
The Christies came out fighting. Ryan made a big deal about deleted his social media accounts and his dad hit back at the trolls. It was way over the top. Christopher Jullien said nothing and rightly so.
READ THIS…The Super sensitive Christies and the thick skin needed to play for Celtic
Last weekend at McDiarmid Park many Celtic supporters commented on the lack of celebration from Ryan Christie after the crucial late goal from Leigh Griffiths gave Celtic the breakthrough. We pointed out amid this criticism (Christie was the only player not to run over to the goalscorer, he simply turned away and clenched his fist) that moments after that goal it was Christie’s excellent block deep inside his own penalty area that prevented a St Johnstone equaliser. That game could have ended 1-1 rather than 2-0 to Celtic and Christie played a crucial part in that.
Ryan Christie, speaking to Scotsman before his COVID-19 frustrations (he is negative remember) had given an update on his current thoughts on signing a new contract with Celtic and it appears that he’s happy to avoid entering into talks about a new deal and is instead prepared to run down the clock on his current deal towards the last few months anyway.
That though is not the way Peter Lawwell and Neil Lennon will be thinking and we can probably now pencil in Christie as one of the want-aways that Neil Lennon spoke about after the Champions League exit in August. Here’s what Christie has being saying about his Celtic contract.
“I’ve spoken to the manager a few times up to this point. With everything going on, I didn’t think it was the right time to go into it. We hadn’t played football in so long and weren’t back playing. I’ve still got plenty of time on my current contract.
“Before this one, I was down to five months to go before we signed a new deal. So there’s plenty of time for that to resolve itself. It’s not occupying my thoughts just now and I’ve said that to the manager as well.
“It’s crazy these days when people go into the last two years of their contract and there’s a big freak out about when they’re going to sign the next one. It’s changed days. My dad always reminds me of when he’d go down to the last week of his contract and still hadn’t heard anything, it’s strange but I’m just enjoying playing again.”
Christie has ever right to eye a move to England – just as Armstrong and Tierney have done before him. However Peter Lawwell also has every right to do what is right for the club and that means not allowing the Christies to manufacture another Boyata situation.
Neil Lennon has better number 10 options already at the club. I remember a St Johnstone player telling us about their dressing room conversations about Celtic players and they reckoned that Tom Rogic was the most talented player in the league. They weren’t wrong. And in both Olivier Ntcham and more probably new signing David Turnbull Celtic are well covered in that position. Whether it’s in January or the summer, it looks pretty much certain that Ryan Christie will be leaving Celtic.
Business is business and it’s time for Peter Lawwell to be looking at maximising the fee for Ryan Christie to make sure there are no “cut price deals” like the one mentioned below.
READ THIS….French club eye Ryan Christie in cut-price deal
