HANDS UP if you had heard the name of Gvidas Gineitis before the summer transfer window.
No, me neither.
The 22-year-old Torino midfielder, capped 29 times by Lithuania, is undoubtedly a fine player and that alone was enough to attract the attention of Celtic.
I’m not privy to insider dealing or how much the Parkhead powerbrokers thought Gineitis was worth in purely financial terms, but, depending on what you hear or read, they appear to have valued the player in the £6.5million region.
That offer was rejected and then some fanciful fees emerged referring to the sort of cash the Serie A club were demanding for their defensive middle-of-the-park operator. Figures of £9million to £12million were bandied around.
NO DEAL…Torino midfielder Givas Gineitis is going nowhere.
Celtic made what they thought was a reasonable bid and Torino knocked it back. Negotiations came to a halt at the end of August and the champions then moved their interest to others to strengthen the squad.
That’s football. Like life itself, you don’t always get what you want.
Torino could not be persuaded to budge from their asking price which the Hoops hierarchy reckoned was prohibitive. Start and end of the story. Time to move on.
Gineitis may well have expressed a desire to come to Glasgow, but as a player with the guts of three years still to run on his contract with the Turin outfit he really had no say in the matter.
When it dawned on a few observers that the deal was dead in the water, there was the usual predictable and monotonous chatter about the club yet again failing to land their man.
Is there anyone on this planet who believes Celtic are the only club to be disappointed with the outcome following the pursuit of a target in this transfer window?
NEW BHOY…Mika Baur aims to hit the ground running.
We can only guess at how Gineitis would have fared at the champions. Certainly, Martin O’Neill would like to have discovered first hand at how he could have utilised the player’s qualities in his line-up.
That’s not going to happen – not in this window, anyhow – and it’s time to move on.
O’Neill must now look to the likes of his midfield recruits Mika Baur, Oliver Sorensen and Joel van den Berg and see how best to gel their skills with those of Callum McGregor, Benjamin Nygren, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Luke McCowan in the engine room of the team.
These are the guys who are the present and future of Celtic. Gineitis is in the past and I can’t see the worth in continuing to reflect on what-might-have-been with the Lithuanian.
If the club are successful yet again on the domestic scene and, for instance, lift their sixth successive title, will anyone be discussing the merits of Gvidas Gineitis next May?
It will be interesting to see how the likes of Kasper Hogh, Camilo Duran and Haissem Hassan – around £26million worth of talent – perform throughout the campaign, at home and abroad.
FALLEN HERO…Camilo Duran hits the deck in the 3-0 win over Aberdeen.
Sam Johnstone, on loan from Wolves, will prove to be a solid back-up to Viljami Sinisalo and it will be interesting to see how other temporary arrivals, full-backs Jordan Lotomba and Landon Emenaldo and striker Shim Mheuka, react to a new environment.
These are the players you and I should be discussing and not the one that got away.
If you continue to look over your shoulder, there is every chance you will make contact with that pesky and inevitable banana skin.
ALEX GORDON
* DON’T miss the unbeatable match report and best action images from St Mirren v Celtic this evening – only in your champion CQN.
WANT TO KNOW A SECRET? Celtic Confidential is the stunning book that brings the exclusive inside stories behind the headlines. Who was the tycoon who would have ruined Celtic? What really happened the night Kenny Dalglish quit the club? The real story behind Mo Johnston’s sensational move to Ibrox. All is revealed in Alex Gordon’s sixteenth Celtic book which is available NOW. Order a copy and get £5 OFF the cover price of £25. Just click SHOP HERE and your book will be on its way. Enjoy the revelations!
