SENTINELCELTS

The Champions rounded off an unusually busy transfer month with a total of 7 players added to the books ,, 4 signings and 3 loanees .
The signings are punts , and the loans do not have an option to buy attached but more on that later . We have a bit for the here and now , and a bit for the future .
Upfront seen the most strengthening , which perhaps is a sign we intend to fire our way to victory with an improved scoring rate , not the old traditional strengthen the back.
Two Yanks are a sign we got a little creative , infact all four of our signings seem a little outside the norm . Fair enough as one who has been wishing different markets exploited , no complaining when it happens then.

For me though the big news is at right back . Its official now that Mikael Lustig will be departing for pastures new come season end .
I grew up on JackieMac ( my fav player ) dominating and excelling in that position , later Didi Agathe so I like to think I have a wee bit of a idea just what exactly a good one looks like .
Our style of play so often demands a very fit player good at both ends , especially at home.
I missed the last game , and the previous one , and have noted posters commenting that Mikael seems in better form .
Mik will probably start against Valencia , and will want to go out with his head held up , therefore I am hoping those that have praised his form are correct . Having stated “ yeah but its St Mirren , St Johnstone etc “ I opined that a good game against quality opposition would do a lot more for me personally .
Perhaps this is the knowledge he is seeing out his last 10 or so games in front of the faithful that has lead to a spring in his step .
Overall he has been a fantastic servant who originally concerned then convinced me that he was worthy of that very important position .
Never ever remember one bad or sinister incident , never mind headline , he certainly seems the consummate professional .
I would hate to have to go back and say “ Oi you said he was back ! “ after the upcoming ties , prove me wrong Mik , just like you did 8 years ago .
Sweden again proved a fruitful hunting ground , long may we keep looking there .
Mik will also hopefully go back with good tales of a positive experience , and perhaps could be a link man , or a persuasive phonecall guy , across the North Sea.
This does put Anthony Ralston in the prime position to take that slot long term and lets hope he grabs the bull by the horns when he does find fitness again.

The new right back, Jeremy Toljan , on loan is welcome news , even without an option to buy .
That can work both ways , be heralded as a coup should you come back with a player and an agreement , or the player himself can use his power via an agent , in conjunction with the / any club of their choice , and force a move if they so wish .
Happens all the time and aint that hard it seems .
In this case though , its just a quick fix .
Will the fella force his way into the team , probably not , but with Anthony injured expect Mikael to be rested against St Johnstone ( again ) on Sunday week so as to be nice and fresh for the Spaniards .
I fully expect we shall lay eyes on our new bhoy then , nice wee home game against a team we just beat . It is a bit soon to grab Brendans philosophy but then I doubt we are looking at it like that , more just I dont care if he plays average , just bring home the 3 points !

I had previously been in discussion with Gold about which of the entire leagues loanee’s will prove the most fruitful and we agreed that when the window shut to make a choice .
My early predictions of Defoe and Gauld seem to have been way off the mark with Burke the man of the moment .
I like the idea of having two of those considered the top tier Scots ( Gauld and Burke ) plying the trade working either with us or close to us so we can have a real quality eyeball at them and access heavily .
Neither would be out of range financially if we chose ,, but with Oliver and this CEO thats a big if.
Seems 5 mill or under is our ceiling . A pity as I believe we could be much more creative in the transfer market , and our trading could move up a notch or two .
Gauld is priced a very reasonable 600 k on the transfermarket website while Oliver seemingly is valued at around 10 million Euro .
Considering the start young master Burke has had , and the fact you can ( and he does by all accounts ) get creative with addons ,, option to buys ,, future sale percentages ,, its a deal that might seem beyond us but its not in reality .
Odsonne was championed as 9 million and we all know thats crap , 5 plus addons more likely .
Burke keeps doing his thing and theres every chance the Plc attempt a move on their own terms most likely similar to Odsonne ,, and if the player is sold on it theres a decent chance it will happen .
At 21 he does tick a lot of boxes and you can imagine getting better with more game time under the belt .
This could well come down to is Brendan staying or going , in order to sway some to remain or even move permanently .

Overall though , I was already confident that Brendan would put Stevie in his box , more bodies and quality ,if even on loan , will help that . This team aint leaving that summit .

We know theres fine wordsmiths out there ,, how about displaying your talent for all ?
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