Week Off? Weak News

By: Matt | April 25th, 2009

As the Scottish Cup continues this weekend without Celtic participating, the team is going through a tough week of hard practices to prepare themselves for the upcoming title run. I’d imagine that the players have never practiced so hard in their lives, in the miserable, rainy Glasgow weather. Oh wait, that’s not happening at all. Instead, as Kevin at the Lord of the Wing points out, as a reward to losing to lowly St. Mirren in the Scottish Cup, the Bhoys will be jet setting to sunny La Manga, Spain for some relaxation, with maybe a spot of footy on the side. This “losers vacation” has however produced some interesting rumors. “Idle hands…” eh? The first of which is the great story of the match scheduled to honor Tommy Burns. The Tommy Burns Tribute match will feature the first team taking on a “Tommy Burns Select” squad filled former teammates and players under Tommy. The list of players confirmed for this match so far can be found here and include such notable players as Paul McStay, John Hartson, and Packie Bonner among others. There some talk that former Celtic, West Ham, and Lazio player, as well as *ahem* “political activist” Paolo Di Canio would be participating as well, bringing some mixed reaction from the Celtic support because of Di Canio’s politics, but it seems that Di Canio has yet to confirm that he will be at the match.

In the world of “never going to happen”, Shunsuke Nakamura has been linked with a club in Saudi Arabia for a possible one year big paycheck move. Naka’s deal at Celtic ends this year and most speculation believes that Naka will head back home to Japan to end his career. Naka has publicly said he might consider staying with Celtic as well, but most believe he’ll head back to the far east. However, Saudi giants Al Nasr have made it clear that they want Naka for a year and would handsomely reward him for his services, to the tune of a £1.5million tax-free deal. While that is a lot of money, I think Naka will still wish to raise his kids in Japan and head home at the end of this season.

In a more serious bit of transfer news, Bayern Munich are looking to line up a £7million deal to try and secure current Celtic keeper Artur Boruc. There was talk of Bayern looking to secure Boruc on a £15 million deal last summer, but the deal never got done and Boruc’s play this season has seen his price cut in half. With fellow Polish keeper Lukasz Zaluska coming to Celtic next season and American Dominic Cervi coming nearer to securing an Italian passport in the next month or so, Celtic might bite on the Bavarian powerhouse’s deal. I hope not though, as some competition for Boruc might shape him up and we’d see the Holy Goalie of old.

Bobo Balde is currently being paid quite handsomely to not play for Celtic, but he might be getting paid to actually play for the newly promoted to the EPL Wolverhampton club. I think both Celtic and Bobo are hoping for a deal that see’s both sides finally part ways. Well, maybe Bobo enjoys sitting at home and earning 30,000 quid a week.

Finally, Celtic are rumored to be trying to continue their dominance in the mediocre SPL midfielders department. Both Celtic and Rangers are apparently lining up £750,000 bids for former MLS and current St. Mirren midfielder Andy Dorman. Honestly, this is not the type of off season move that will improve Celtic. Celtic certainly have a plethora of midfielders at an equal or better skill level of Dorman.

Finally, Celtic’s BFF4E (channeling my inter-13 year old girl) St. Pauli finally have a blog here on The Offside. While the author might be a big twat, it is worth checking out. Go over and say hi to Mike and the St. Pauli blog here.

TAL