How’s it going lads. I’ve never signed up to a different club’s forum before but there’s been so many conflicting opinions on Christie I felt the need to.
You’ve got yourselves an outstanding player if coached well and instructed to temper his long range shooting habits.
Last season with Neil Lennon as Celtic manager it seemed Ryan was instructed to shoot on sight.. it didn’t go well and he ended up the fans’ whipping boy as a result. A lot of accusations were thrown at him (by myself included) that he had gotten too big for his boots. His body language seemed to reflect that he thought he was too big for Celtic etc.
Going into this season I said, against the general consensus, that I thought Christie could be a great player for us with a new manager coming in who’s actually qualified to manage the club. Very few shared this view.. soured by our dire 20/21 season (recency bias and all that). From the first whistle this season Christie has been outstanding for us. He’s skilful, extremely energetic and hardworking and overall just a very cultured footballer.. easy on the eye. It didn’t take me long to declare that getting him signed on a new deal should be the number 1 priority of this transfer window.
Nobody knows what goes on behind the scenes.. but I get the feeling Christie wasn’t offered the contract I believe we should have offered. Our top top earners at the club are on £25k a week by all accounts. I thought we should have offered him that plus a £2m signing bonus or something to that effect. Since he’s left he’s said he’s always fancied a move to England though and a part of me is definitely happy to see the back of him as we now have a squad full of players who really want to be here. Ntcham, Christie, Ajer and Edouard were all top top drawer players when on form but some of their attitudes did stink at times (never Ajer’s by the way. Mark my words he will be excellent at Brentford. Their recruitment has been top notch).
Stuart Armstrong went to Southampton and has done well and I can say without hesitation that Christie is easily the better player. I’m pretty shocked he’s gone to the Championship but I think with Parker, Christie and some of your other talent like Lerma, Brooks, Solanke and Cahill I reckon ye will go back up this season.. I’ve stuck ye into my acca anyway!
To summarise, with respect, Christie will walk into your starting 11. You’ve signed a cracking player who will not be with you next season if you fail to gain promotion I would imagine. The man has an endless gas tank and, like I say, is a very cultured footballer who makes things look very easy at times. I’ll remember him fondly and one performance in particular sticks out when he was absolutely outstanding the night we beat RB Leipzig at Parkhead.
side note.. He’s at his best as a central/attacking midfielder but he has also played LW, RW and up front. He’s never a striker and he’s always been a bit wasted on the right but this season he was thrown in on the left for the first time I can remember and he did excellent out there.
Good luck this season. No, seriously. I wanna click my acca