The Craig Gordon debate was one that ran alongside all the other nonsense in Celtic’s disastrous nine in a row season. You don’t need me to go over old ground as it has been well covered by my own site and every other Celtic site available.
But this quote from Steve Clarke caught my eye today. In his Scotland squad announcement, Clarke was speaking about Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon and revealed an interesting insight to the Scotland keepers departure from Paradise.
Clarke said, “Craig just wanted to play football and he felt that leaving Celtic was the best way to do that.
“I had spoken to Craig a few times over the years and he has always known what I think of him as a goalkeeper.
“One of the conversations we had he actually said got me. He said, ‘Maybe I’ll have to leave to get first team football to get involved with Scotland again.’
“That’s what he wanted, to be involved.”
Hold up! He left because he wanted to be involved in Scotland? So he decided to quit because he wasn’t considered first choice keeper at Celtic? That’s a bit strange.
Gordon took to Talksport to reveal back in June that he was disappointed in how the negotiations were going and nothing was mentioned about wanting to play to fight for his national place.
One reason, and one reason only was cited. Money.
Gordon at the time said, “It (the gap) was absolutely enormous, so there wasn’t much chance of there being a possibility of a deal.
“It was a long way short of what I was expecting from them and that’s what I told them.
“As yet, they’ve not come back with anything else, so it’s up to them to come back with a better deal and I’d still be willing to listen to them and absolutely nothing has changed since then.”
This encouraged a media pile on at Celtic as soon as Barkas’ form started to dip and Lennon chopped and changed his number 1 as the Hoops lumbered from one poor result to another.
Either Clarke or Gordon is being disingenuous here. I know who I have my money on.