Jota Day

Another day and a new accounting year begins.

Although there was some fretting on the Celtic internet about whether or not João Pedro Neves Filipe would leave his beloved Benfica was never in doubt.

A bom amigo of mine spends much of his time rubbing shoulders with well-connected chaps at Estádio da Luz.

My buddy has a long-standing project to convert me away from Sporting Lisbon!

It is a regular topic of conversation over lunch when I’m in Lisbon every November for the Web Summit.

Over the past couple of months, he has been my window into the discussions in Benficaland about the wisdom of letting Jota leave for Celtic.

What was not in question this summer was that the loan deal would become a permanent transfer.

There is no doubting the Portuguese club’s genuine affection for one of their own.

This is a classy farewell.

The Portuguese winger is hardly an unknown quantity for Celtic, and that might be how Ange likes to do his business in an ideal world.

The quietly brilliant Alan Morrison (@Alan_Morrison67) of Celtic By Numbers guested today on the ACSOM bulletin.

In his usual calm and deliberative style, he laid out the data for Hoops fans to back up the contention that this lad is rather special.

Alan is also rapidly learning about the transparent stupidity of the succulent suspects when it comes to matters across the city.

If there isn’t a readily available good news story about Sevco, then the other thing is to somehow present Celtic’s good news in a bad light.

As the numbers guy might say, the data on this transfer window for Sevco is not good.

Here the eminently eloquent Mr Kris Boyd deals with a real journalist.

So far, Celtic have signed two crucial players from last season on permanent deals.

The club has also brought in a dependable backup keeper (Siegrist) and a much-needed left-back.

Clearly, the  Argentinian kid has been signed to be a first-team starter.

I recalled yesterday what an old print journo told me from his time on a sports desk in Glasgow in the 1990s.

His boss was issuing instructions and, probably realising that the average fitba hack is more likely to qualify for membership of DENSA rather than the better know association for the intelligent,  kept it simple.

“Bring me two types of stories,” he told his charges.

“Rangers magic! Celtic tragic!”.

The only thing that has changed from those days is that it is a different Rangers.

However, the succulent suspects hope that everyone forgets about this factual front page from the guys on the news desk.

In the meantime, Celtic, the club with the biggest football budget in the country, quietly goes about the business of building a side that will retain the title.

Dear reader, this is what happens when the CEO doesn’t need to be THE story.

On the same day the Portuguese winger signed up for the next five years, more numbers were published.

To put that in perspective, those Celtic season ticket holders could not all fit inside Ibrox stadium, which only holds 50,817.

That stadium advantage, coupled with the massively bigger commercial revenues, means that the champions of Scotland have a massive financial advantage over their poorer rivals across the Clyde.

All that is then required is for the chaps in the Parkehead Boardroom to let a qualified manager get on with the job.

Now that Lawwellball is finally at an end, the public data is there for all to see.

Jota is part of that change.

Tudo é bom!