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

Really sick of this we went big on Idah, Engels and Trusty chat.


In Rodgers first full year in charge we sold the following:

Jota 25m
O’Reilly 25m
Starfelt 5m
Abada 8m

Only * right the board gave him some money to spend.

 

Not really. I would presume that the release clause (if true) only came into effect this month. If anything; that emphasises that we really shouldn’t have been spending the quoted figures on him in January.

I said on deadline day in January that we’d been messed around something awful by his agent. We’ve walked away from targets for less.

 

10~ years on the forum, you seem to still struggle with the concept of the "non media" thread.

 

Dr forum police

 

It’s clearly got something to do with folk at Celtic not being happy with how we have been treated that has led to us not following up. This super secret release clause was reported by someone at Celts are Here months ago that he had a release clause which would become active this summer at €8m.

We might have even spoken to his agent towards the end of the season and he has said not interested in a move to Scotland. So we have ended our interest.

It looks like we plan to use Maeda as a striker so we have switched our focus from needing a striker to a winger.

 

Been saying this for ages. Some call it going big, and other people call it replacing players in the first team.

It really does show how much we’ve been starved as a support when it comes to genuine ambition relative to our revenue, when last years window is portrayed as some sort of monumental, breakthrough accomplishment.

 

I dont think our our support is starved. We have won 14 of the last 15 leagues.

Around Europe most other comparable club thats outside of the big 3 or 4 cash rich leagues are doing similar what what we do with transfers broadly speaking.

Our net spend averages about a surplus of 8-10M on a good year. Since covid I think its 18MM surplus in total.

2025 - 11MM surplus
2024 - 21MM surplus
2023 - 25MM deficit
2022 - 11MM surplus

Some examples of other teams from last years CL (in EUR):

Feyenoord - player sales = 90MM. Player buys = 25MM. Net surplus 65MM Highest fee paid = 7MM

PSV - player sales = 35MM. Player buys = 35MM. Net surplus = 0 Highest fee paid = 11MM

Brugge - player sales = 71MM. Player buys = 31MM. Net surplus = 40MM. Highest fee paid = 6MM

Benfica - player sales = 160MM. Player buys = 74MM. Net surplus = 84MM. Highest fee paid = 16MM

Salzburg player sales = 40MM. Player buys = 31MM. Net surplus = 9MM. Highest fee paid = 10MM

Celtic player sales = 56MM. Player buys = 45MM. Net surplus = 11MM. Highest fee paid = 13MM

 

See what’s interesting with those figures though is none of those clubs are even remotely close to running with the level of capital in the bank. Even Benfica and all the profit they make nor Club Brugge. Feyenoord seem to actually have quite considerable debt despite their large profits.

I don’t care about a net spend but we should with the level of cash at the bank be able to invest what we make.

See the numbers you mention on Transfermarkt they are somewhat skewed by misrepresenting timing and only showing the Jota sell on we paid and no add ons or sell ons we received from the likes of Ajer, Edouard, Christie and possibly others.

In addition, we also made substantial operating profits in 2023 (£25.5m further topped up by Ange and insurance cash of £13.5m) and in 2024 (over £19m). In the 2025 accounts when they come out you would expect them to show another £20m OPEX profit too.

That is actually something not many if any of the other clubs will do. They often make losses without player trading.

 

The cash in the bank has accumulated over quite a number of years though and largely been down to having direct access to CL. My main point with the figures is that outside of your big leagues, its perfectly normal to be running a surplus on transfers (many in our support seem to think we are almost unique in this regard and take it as a sign of our board being completely stingey rather than it being adopted extensively). Its what we should be trying to do. The surplus we run, on a yearly average, is also not excessive. I think its underestimated how quickly it could be depleted if we stray too far from our current approach. Its not a lot of money in CL terms.

As it stands now, personally I think its high enough that we could be prepared spend more of it and tolerate a season or two of deficit. I also think the new CL format offers us a much more favourable platform in Europe with more games, easier route to knock out stages and higher financial incentives for actually getting results. There is more reason to speculate to accumulate than the old format where our inevitable 4th place group seeding made knock out stages very long shot. We should now have a more tangible target of looking to get into the CL and aim for that top 75% of teams that go into some form of knockout.

I think there are many, many factors before you even get to the board or the player trading model we employ in terms why Europe is such a challenge though. We play in a small country the absolute * end of leagues in terms of quality and revenue in Champion League terms. Theres not only a severe lack of quality, theres also very little competition. Playing teams sitting on on 20% possession is brutal preparation for CL football. Its by far the biggest obstacle to being able to progress.

 

Like someone pointed out it was slow last season aswell then picked up pace as soon as august came their must be an accounting reasoning behind it surely Bernardo and idah were not signed until Aug Engels was end of window along with mcowan


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As strange a window as i can remember from a common theme/strategy. If you take it on face value, we look like all our targets are either nearly out of contract or are projects. With 100m sitting in the bank? At least if you are going cut price you can push the boat out wages for clear quality.

 

Four more players needed. CDM, RW, CB and LW. I'm sure they are all in the pipeline.

The question is can we get them all over the line.

 

C'mon mate. Seriously.

This type of attitude just clearly smacks of of some quasi Stockholm syndrome.

Making excuses for a board with this pattern of repetitive behaviour and saying we cant actually judge the window until its closed is like having a partner cheat on you multiple times, suspecting theyre at it again and saying "ah well, I don't actually KNOW, I'll wait until someone tells me different".

As someone aptly put a few pages back, we were second best to Sevco on every occassion but one last season. That should be massively * WORRYING for people.

Theyve strengthened considerably given their financial restraints, and are highly unlikely to let the same results against lower sides repeat themselves this coming season.

We could all see what is required in the market, particularly a CDM. Or at least a mid with a bit of dynamism etc etc.

The modern media are pretty clued into transfer business these days. Very very rarely do signings just pop out of nowhere. So where are the links that offer you ANY sort of encouragement that we're not * this window up and gambling with our league dominance?

This board rely on that type of apathy from our wider support. This hoping and finger crossing then the inevitable closing of a hugely disappointing window, followed by AGM excuses and back to zero..."maybe the next window will be different".

 

where is this secret release clause bullshit coming from im pretty sure it was discussed in the kvistgaarden thread during the last transfer window that he could move for that price this summer

 

No one is making excuses for the board. Some of us are just aware that transfer business is hard and especially difficult for a team like ourselves, this early in the month. I'd love one person to just have a grown up conversation about it without mentioning the * across the road. Who cares what they do? People keep mentioning the games against them. Styles make matches. They played a completely different style of football against us. Hit us on the counter attack, lump the ball forward at any opportunity. Martin isn't going to do that and when he does try and implement his own style of play, our players will be far better. They tried to match us in one game last season and they were blown away in the first half. So, let them come and try and play football against us. They'll get their * handed to them again and sent back on their way.

There are genuine criticisms of the board. Most of us are aware how they operate but since the COVID year under Lennon, they've spent nearly £30m every single season. Both seasons under Ange and both seasons under Rodgers. We are less than 2 weeks into the transfer window. We've signed 5 players, including the Japanese striker. The real business for us will start when the bigger moves start taking place. Then, we will begin to see the movement we need to get our first choice players in the door. We have to be patient though. The patience worked last season, given we spent nearly £30m on 3 players in the final week of the window.

We were linked with Arne Engels on the 14th of August. He said in his interview that his agent had apparently held initial talks with us from the middle of July but the first link didn't come out until 14th of August. He signed on the final day of the window. The media do pick up things but sometimes, especially on some of the players we sign, they're not privy to that information. We were then first linked with Trusty a week after we were linked with Engels. Again, when he was asked about when he heard of our interest, it was sometime in early July. Can you see the pattern? Celtic will be talking to loads of players and loads of agents and there will be definitely some that are considered 1st/2nd picks and we will absolutely give them the time they need to make the decision. The difficulty is finding the right balance of allowing the players the time to make that decision and moving onto the next target because the move is taking too long. There will be 2 qualifiers and 4 games in the league before the window shuts. We will be reasonably confident of getting through the league games unscathed, even with the team as it currently stands. The board and the manager need to be given the patience to do their * job without people getting their knickers in a twist over Rangers signing 117 players for £100 squillion because let's face it, that's why half the * in here are getting nervous. Over Loan FC and their band of EFL wonderkids.

 

Most spot on post I’ve seen.

my only hope regarding Scottish CL guarantee is this recent influx of money we’ve seen being put into Aberdeen,hearts, hibs from outside. Smart business men are seeing the potential of putting money in and playing regular Europa league/conference football at the same time as developing scouted players for profit. All our teams usually get easy qualifiers and still * it up.

if with this new investment we could have Scottish teams in group stage football every year the co-efficient would rise drastically. Co-efficient points are marked equally so an Aberdeen winning 6 games in the conference league group stage would be better than us winning 1 or 2.

hopefully this would then rise the overall co-efficient and we’d get those guarantees

 

Aye, but apart fae all that?

 

Very well put.

Then you add on we’ve over a 100 million in the bank. Playing a 2 legged tie in August which according to chat gbt (I know) is worth an extra 30 million to the winner. And a manager who is as good as we could possibly get. Show us the money ffs.