Celtic's 2025/26 Summer transfer window: needed and wanted!

Last summer 26m on 3. Think the results are the reason the board won't be going out and doing it again.

 

This is it.

£26m and none of them were on the pitch after about the hour mark in the Scottish Cup final (with Trusty not getting on the pitch at all).

 

I'm not distressed over the transfer activity right now.

I feel like Shin Yamada aside (assuming he signs just for argument sake) it overall feels like there is some actual thought in the signings made so far even though they are admittedly cheap and present as unusual. I can't explain it fully, but it doesn't feel like we are just taking random punts off of someone's 5 minute opinion when they've secretly only came about a player because of their ocd playing of Football Manager.

Spending money in our league without and absolute guarantee that either CL is assured or Player sales provide us with a rolling sum of £30mill a year ontop of CL participation is tricky.

We could spend £35mill on three players, with them all on circa £35k and week (as we can't always been signing 22 and under)

Which increases our wage budget by over £5mill. Then without guarantee we get profits on players the next season, we as fans would then demand equal spending again the following season increasing the wage bill again in the attempt to spend circa £35mill on transfers.

It is a frustrating balancing act to manage because domestically the revenue is a joke and we'd be as well as financially (putting aside realism here) canning our domestic game and only participate in CL for 8 games year just because it earns us more money by an incredible margin, then slogging it out for 38 games domestically can.

Don't get me wrong, I want to see a statement or two come in for around the £10s million each, but at the same time, I don't see that is routinely viable for Celtic if we can never guarantee sales of player will get us profits at those margins, as it will also largely rely on said players being able to play CL football and earn moves (like Kuhn has)

I personally believe that if Scottish football was in a position that it's say, 5 years down the line and we know for a fact we have auto CL spots season after season guaranteed for an extended period of time, then we'd see very different activity. But as it seems unlikely Scottish football will ever achieve that. We will always be on this type of low ball recruitment.

Which on that long winded rambled note. I find it mind blowing how we don't have a relative first in class scouting and recruitment department, because we clearly have the finances to build one, we just appear to refuse to but it seems like such an obvious way to earn silly money in trying unearth gems

 

With the club * around for no reason when players do sign they are going to be met with a meh attitude from the support.

Clearly Rodgers been told to sell before he can buy and get wage bill down.

Just run like a bowling club and a bank

 

Utter nonsense.

We are likely trying to move on players we don't deem good enough to remain part of the squad, most of us tend to agree on pretty much all of them. Some of those players are coming back from successful loans, their stock is high enough to get a decent enough fee.

There is no chance the board have said we need to sell before we buy.

 

Done it with him 2018.
Done it with lenny 2014
Done it with lenny 2019

These * have previous

 

Second leg of CL playoff: 26th/27th August
Transfer Window Closes: 1st September

Cutting it fine if the board are planning to make major moves once CL fate is decided. Not to mention clubs will play hard ball at the last minute knowing we need to buy and they have to then replace players.

 

We spent big for us on Engels, Bernardo, Trusty and Idah. They really should be automatic picks but they’re not. Given our finances and stability we should be a mile ahead of the rest. I don’t think we are. Someone is not getting it right somewhere.

 

It might be the most negative I've seen on here during a summer window, and it's the 10th July.

If it was the 10th August id understand, maybe even join in, but it's unbelievably Ruthless in here.

Few linked targets maybe seem a bit underwhelming on paper, but for me, I'm just happy that we've actually made a decent amount of signings for once and have been linked to a plethora of players.

One major outgoing so far in Kuhn, and he's the one most of us would see leave over the others in our squad

I know people don't want to hear this, but there is still over a month and a half remaining in the Transfer Window. If we're still in a similar position in 3 weeks time, it's a completely different story.

 

I can understand being disappointed by the window so far but disgusted? Yeah we haven't spent a lot (so far) but I'm happy with a few of the signings. The defender from J-League I find just odd. I also think had Nygren cost £7m people would be talking about statement of intent, when I think it was just a fabulous piece of business.

I think I start to get a bit more judgy at the start of the season. We need a few players in by then certainly and I'd rather they were here now but in the next couple of weeks isn't a bad thing.

 

Previous windows have clearly scarred a lot of people.

It's genuinely been a good start, 10th July and we've improved the team with Tierney and Nygren and brought in a really good prospect in Osmund.

Losing Kuhn but in all honesty, he's the one player id be happy to move on out of our major assets

Inamura and Yamada are a bit underwhelming on paper but neither are coming in to start, I expect Inamura to be loaned out around the end of August tbh.

Again, if we're in the same position in 3 weeks time, I'll join in with people worrying/complaining, but the 10th June? I'd be exhausted if I let it bother me this early on

My only real complaint is the lack of LB and midfielder rumours, hopefully we start seeing them pop up shortly.

 

It’s past performance projecting forward that makes people nervous.

One things for sure when we are actually in for players it will likely come from their local media rather than ours. Once the Kuhn sale goes through if we aren’t quickly linked with a decent winger beyond Balikwisha it would be worrying.

 

Said it before and I'll say it again. The money we spend isn't all that bad. Think we've spent around £30m a season over the last 4 seasons(with no net spend, admittedly) but it's the way we spent it.

It all comes down to Scouting. Look at some of the best clubs in the world for scouting. Teams like Feyenoord, USG and Salzburg, picking up loads of players for buttons and then will spend £7m-£10m when they need to. It's just quality scouting.

 

I think its difficult. We have a wage budget comparable with an english championship side and we play in a worse league. The ask is to be competitive in the champions league.

There arent many clubs in europe in our position with our level of resources that are benchmarking themselves at champions league level. Most play in better domestic leagues where they can more easily benchmark thrmselves against domestic competition and winning their domestic league is more statisfying.

We have become accustomed to taking winning the league as a given. A substantial part of that is actually down to being far better run as an organisation than our rivals. But thats largely become taken for granted as well. A better run, more competitive rangers side would put more of a shine on domestic accomplishment.

There is scope to improve. 100 odd million in reserve is excessive. I think the general model is correct, but the application is too rigid. We should be prepared to be more fluid when we do enjoy several years of running a surplus.

But i think a lot of the factors limiting us in the champions league lie in factors outside the boards control and the lack competition domestically for the best part of 15 years has lead to boredom domestically and frustration that the champions league has moved further and further out of reach relative to our resources.

 

I do agree with a lot of that but our benchmark will shortly shift back to qualifying for the league phase of the Champions League which without automatic entry the last time we done that was 2017 and we have a very chequered history of doing so over the 7 or so years that proceeded that.

I do think further progress in the CL is extremely challenging and actually getting to the league phase and being competitive to get a top 24 place is good going.

I also think maybe not right away but we will face a stiffer test domestically than we have done but part of that is down to our own performance in recruitment and player development over the last few seasons probably back to Ange season one 2021/22, player development going back further.

I still don’t see what stops those running the club benchmarking an approach to youth development or our transfer model against other clubs.

 

I get people being a bit nervous, I am too, but the way some people are talking you'd think they'd opened their front door to Peter Lawwell * on their front door step while he tells them this is the only thing Celtic fans are getting from him this summer.