[Official TC Thread] January Transfer Window 2025 - 3rd Feb 11pm Deadline

perhaps its time to let idah take the strikers role and make it his own ,the only way he is gonna get better is with more game time . i think we may have addressed a lot of the issues we were having ,in terms of creating chances, with the signing of jota . replacing kyogo is gonna be a much bigger task than some would like to think, maybe someone in the position of edouard when he signed would allow idah to reach his potential and have another youngster with a lot of potential devoloping and pushing him on

 

Absolute *... the lot of them.

2 steps forward 3 steps back.. should be on our crest..

 

Erabi doesn’t look the type we would associate with previous managers but with Rodger’s I can see him being a Rodger’s type, more physical and dropping deeper to lay the ball off , 1st time round a lot of our goals came from Sinclair, roberts and Forrest aswell as the rogic and Armstrong , rodgers strikers don’t really get you 25+ goals a season so can see this being true and is why Kyogos numbers have dropped past two seasons ( although his finishing at times was bad), jota will be tasked with getting similar numbers to Kuhn on the opposite side which I think he is capable of. If we get the Norwegian boy in also then I think it would be a better window.

 

Hoping that KDS rumor about Erabi is not true. We need either a more proven player like Strelec, or better yet, an older head Idah can learn from.

 

Happy Sunday! Massive days ahead for us! Beating Motherwell and 2/3 quality additions in and we are laughing by tomorrow night!

 

Alot of business to be done in next 36hrs or so if we are too leave the window stronger than we started it as per BR request.

 

Current state of play.

 

I’ve been thinking about this too.

For a time I felt we became too obsessed with signing young players, often spread betting.

We’ve had great success signing slightly older players and actually we’ve still managed to move them on for profit (Kyogo, Giakoumakis, Juranovic).

I’m not against signing younger guys but we do need to be careful, especially in such an important position and for such a high cost.

I’m not criticising Nicholson here because to his credit he is bringing in more experienced guys at cost, I just mean to say I don’t think it would be the worst thing to bring in a 26/27 year old striker with some solid experience if we think a first choice younger striker like Kvistgaarden isn’t available.

 

I have considered that.
It may be the plan that Idah is to take Kyogo's role as first pick CF. Whoever we sign, or IF we sign another striker at all it may be to fill the role of backup striker to Idah.

Makes sense. You don't pay 9mil for a striker to be a constant 2nd choice...........well at least we don't. It may have been the long term plan to replace Kyogo with Idah and simply sign a backup

 

aye if we have intentions of selling idah on for a profit (which is always the case) he needs to be playing

 

We'll be expecting 20 mil+ for both Idah and Engels in a couple of years time. We will not have forked out those type of fees without considering the potential profit margin.

But you are correct. Idah is not going to put himself in the 20 mil+ bracket by being a backup striker........He's going to need to be first choice and probably bagging at least 25 goals a season before that happens

 

Think jota was a lot less than that.

 

Very poor window on striker front.

We had several months notice on Kyogo leaving and it took us until the last 2 days to figure out Brondby were not shifting from higher, but well understood, £13M price - despite having previous negotiations over last 18months.
We could have had him him for way, way less last year but chose not to pay as we 'monitored' the situation.

A new striker should have been identified and signed in first week of window, or at minimum a fee and wage agreed as the other pieces of the puzzle move, like Kyogo to Rennes.

Now increasingly desperate and likely being overcharged by everyone as options and quality reduces.
Totally gives me the Ajeti fear as we get linked with completely dross like Iheanacho - thankfully that one seems not true.

 

Bang on . Board asleep at the wheel again.*. COYBIG HH

 

Was it no quoted that the fee for Jota was exactly the same as the fee for Kyogo? It wasn't an official player swap (no heard of one of those in years)...but it was as good as

 

While it’s not ideal, I’m not convinced we’re desperate.

Idah is our main striker. Maeda can play that position too, and he’s been freed up with Jota coming back.

I would be frustrated too if Celtic were offering a pittance for players (as we’ve done in the past) or if we were genuinely desperate (struggling in the league or had a real chance in Europe), but it feels to me we are offering a fair and expensive price for our number one target and the other team are asking too much.

I don’t think we should submit and offer way over the odds when we aren’t mega desperate, and I don’t think we should panic buy secondary targets if we think we can get the one we want in the summer considering the circumstances.

But I respect people feel differently because I’m usually with them on that side of the fence.

 

Thats fair enough but I dont think the board should be allowing the team to weaken if they cant secure their top targets.

Il reserve judgement though until the window is closed, as deadline day is notorious for last minute deals, so we may yet get some deals over the line.

 

True but for me, the issue is we need the new striker to be in the door, settled in etc. well before we play our 2 CL qualifiers in the summer, they will be massive 50M games and we should have our ducks in a row by then but looking extremely unlikely right now.

 

That’s fine, but a lot of the support were looking for a winger (at least one) and probably another striker, on top of Kyogo staying.

We’ve sold Kyogo and brought in Jota. Maeda moving to the striker role (even on a rotation basis) has us back at square one.

Another winger and striker are absolute musts.

 

The point is the numbers and quality of players going out, rather than coming in.

Definitely will not be stronger at the end of Monday.