Celtic's 2025/26 Summer transfer window: Stage: Shelby hovering over the Panic button

It’s only my view on what I think will happen

 

Nothing new in the latest record report



As the Scottish champions search for a new frontman to rival Adam Idah, the door to sign Louis Munteanu remains open.

The Romania international has been thrown into a bizarre situation by Cluj amid claims that a £10.5million bid from Stade Rennes had been accepted - while a Celtic bid had been knocked back.

But club president Cristi Balaj has stepped in to clarify the striker's future, telling Fanatik: "There is nothing concrete at the moment, discussions are ongoing.

"As long as we have nothing concrete, there is no point in developing the subject.

"There are chances he might leave, of course. Anything can happen in football.

"He is a sought-after player, and clubs looking for a player of his caliber bring him in even in the middle of the transfer period, it's not a problem.

"The important thing is that Louis Munteanu is healthy, preparing very well, and fully focused on everything we need to do."

Reports have also suggested Celtic have seen a £1.5million bid for Go Ahead Eagles winger Jakob Breum turned down - but CEO Jan Willem van Dop has revealed the club are still awaiting an offer.

He told De Oosttribune: "There's no concrete offer for him yet. There was some interest from FC Twente last winter.

"That didn't happen. I think he could still leave, but then a hefty sum will have to be paid.

 

Hard agree. No one who is an average SPL player gets anywhere near our first team. Even people we think are just backup like Bain or Ralston would be above average at a midtable SPL team. Someone on the fringes like Yang would be an absolute star at most SPL teams.

 

David Friel


Celtic have targets who right now might not want to fully commit until they know Celtic are 100 per cent in the Champions League.

And that leads to a stand-off position because you might be able to get number two or number three on your list, who're happy to come just now if it means Celtic are Champions League or Europa League, but not your top targets.

What are you better doing, taking the lesser player or gambling? It's a tricky situation.

I have sympathy for any club in the situation where you might have to wait a little bit of time for your top targets but you have this huge tie coming up.

But Celtic fans won't want to hear that excuse they'll be saying get the deal done if it means paying that player - who can get you to the Champions League - that little bit extra.

I don't think it's as simple as that. I don't think there's an unwillingness from Celtic to spend big money, we saw that last summer with Celtic saying they broke their transfer record twice.

But I think the fear is among Celtic fans - and maybe even Brendan Rodgers - is that it comes too late for the Champions League, which is such a huge priority for Celtic

 

Trotting out the excuses

 

Using the Feyenoord example again, but they've got two qualifying rounds and they've managed to sign players. Funny that.

 

I think we should all stop saying "they're young and have time to develop " . Just look at the ages of that Ajax team who battered us last night and ask yourself if the likes of Engles, Idah and Trusty could score the goals or control the back line like they did

 

They are a lot richer than us and play in a much better league.

You can argue that we paid too much for Idah and I'd find it hard to argue now TBH. I'd expect more for 9 million. But I think Engels was about as good as I expected from his fee and Trusty actually exceeded my expectations. If you want better players than Engels and Trusty, you have to either find a bargain (which occasionally we do) or spend more money.

 

Genuinely think we should have gotten a better return for the money we spent on Engles, Trusty and Idah - especially when you look at the success we had on the likes of Maeda, Kayogo, Hatate, Khun, MOT etc who cost a lot less but easily proved to be money well spent but worthwhile noticing that the latter weren't signed by BR

 

But all of these players were absolute bargains. They aren't remotely what you usually get for those fees. I might as well say that I expected more from Chris Sutton because in that era, £300k got us Lubo and £650k got us Larsson, so surely £6 million ought to have got us Pele.

 

I see Trump is back in Scotland. We need Trump in the hot seat. Someone that can originate, structure and execute a deal.

Maybe stick a few tariffs on the transfers as well

 

Cost of the player doesnt guarantee success. Just because Idah cost £9m doesnt mean he wasn't a dud.

The issue we have os Rodgers appears to have a very limited knowledge of transfer market and does majority of his shopping in bigger more expensive markets.

We knew this from his 1st spell here so when we decided to bring him back, supporting him with proper scouting team should have been part of the deal.

 

I didn’t miss the point, I agreed we need to be better. I was only joking because it’s easy to say Liverpool can do it, why can’t we.

But we’ve seen many teams over the years do it very well. EPL you have Bournemouth and Brighton, in the Netherlands Feyenoord were highlighted. RB Salzburg were normally very good at it. There are plenty of examples.

What’s really difficult I think, is we have the money there and if all the fans can clearly see what’s wrong, surely the “experts” can see what is wrong as well. It’s got to be obvious to them.

The management and recruitment team must know what we need, if they haven’t identified a bunch of players that would improve us, * are they doing and being paid for?

We should be signing players knowing we’re selling others and they’re going to replace them.

 

We’re heading in the same direction as last season, where every club and their mother knows we have money to spend and that we need to fill certain gaps (winger, striker) so they can hold us over the fire until we cough up.

That’s not our fault, but it is where having a proper recruitment department comes into play. Because * would be less able to demand 10 million for a 5 million player if we have several other coals in the fire. Would we have got a deal closer to Idah’s actual market value if Norwich knew we were negotiating for 1 or 2 other targets at the same time? That seems likely.

 

The levels of toxicity vs st mirren next week are going to be unreal and volatile within celtic park. Whats meant to be a day of celebrating last season success will be a toxic and vehement environment towards the board! Go out in the UCL playoff and they better get 24hr security cause I think a lot of fans had high expectations this summer and clearly for me the board are either trying to force Rodgers out, not back him as he has told them he is done after this season or are they trying to create competition domestically? Its clear as day something is wrong fundamentally within our club when it comes to signing players but have no issue selling them.

 

If we go out in the qualifier without having made a serious signing, I'll flip the * lid. I know some people are in a constant state of 'sack the board', but that would push me into that territory. It's one of the most important games of our season, worth tens of millions to us, and we've missed out through rolling the dice plenty of times in the past.

 

What happened to all the "wait and see/ whinge when the transfer window is closed/ its only July/ lol at the doom merchants/ we WILL spend big money before the end of July/ calm doon" patter?

Didnt someone tell me a bunch if pages back to bookmark their post because of his supreme confidence that come the league start we would have spent significantly and that there was nought to panic about?

Got awful * quiet on that side of the boardroom fence all of a sudden.

A week to go before the league kicks off;

No striker
No new wingers
No real CB
No left back cover

Some of our fans never * learn. Year after year, window after window.

 

Technically we've signed 2 strikers and a Japanese left back..

 

Squad fillers to be honest. Standard stuff from the board

 

Aye I'm just taking the * however I actually think the striker will take over from idah.