Celtic's 2025/26 Summer transfer window: Stage: Panic

Yes this is getting really quite worrying now.

Feels like the old days when we’d sell players for £15m+ and replace them with a £2-3m signing at best.

Last season’s progress in Europe has done nothing to encourage the board to spend money.

 

I said there was battle going on for weeks now, and we still don't know the final outcome.
But the silence is defeaning and unnerving.

 

But it wasn't successful, it started well and finished with the winner against sevco.

The rest of the time he was as * on loan as he has been since we paid 2 or 3 times what we should have.

 

Amazing how fast it goes everytime we sell a player. Kuhn was gone within 48 hours of the first bid. Its almost like most clubs with elite ambitions do their business fast.

 

Summer 2018 all over again.

I remember sitting on holiday and saying to my da "we have completely imploded". That was off that back of a double treble yet we had manager and chief executive publically falling out and having to he summoned to Dublin for meeting with Desmond.

We've already had round 1 this summer, Rodgers with his ambition comments and Lawwells response through his puppet Paul Brennan about the manager sitting on players for weeks.

I reckon we are a week maybe 2 tops from Rodgers really going in on them. It may even come sooner, he has a press conference on Friday where there will be far more journalists than there was over in Como, and will be far harsher questions asked about the recruitment.

Once again we have failed to strengthen from a position of strength. It seems the board are terrified of leaving the Huns behind for good.

 

Something is very clearly wrong if we are having to block a player of the calibre of Tillio moving because we dont have enough depth.

Im prepared to cut slack for a lot of things that go in the transfer market and make allowances for situations being fluid and having to wait to secure the right targets.

But the winger situation was an easy one. We knew month ago Jota was out long term and Kuhn was was leaving. We even got the Kuhn sale done very early allowing plenty of time to secure a replacement.

There's no excuses at all for not having this particular area of the team strengthened by now.

And the optics coming out from it are mickey mouse. Piddling bids for a Go Ahead Eagles player as a replacement. 3 bids in and we haven't even met half their valuation of him. This is the player we want to start in CL games? FC Twente are prepared to bid more. Tillio publicly being flagged as having a move blocked due to lack of cover? Pretty pathetic stuff for a club with 80M in the bank and sitting on a summer surplus of around 20M from player sales. Father Ted stuff.

 

This is just the latest chess move.

Rodgers tell the board Tillio isnt in his plans, they then accept an offer and Rodgers blocks the move bcoz they haven't signed the players he wants.

I wouldn't be surprised if the board are deliberately lowballing and taking weeks to negotiate just to * him off.

Once again we have egos and petty infighting holding the club back and as per usual the ones who suffer are the fans.

Tbh this was always on the cards the moment we brought Rodgers back.

 

Another day with no new links, or any sign of movement at all. As @Dianbobo Balde has said above the optics of the stories that are public are a riddy. You'd think even a bit of personal pride or protecting the brand would kick us into action here to make a statement but nah..

Something out of nowhere to boost morale is desperately needed man. GET THE FINGER OUT!

 

Bids are small, new players are far away

 

Just embarrassing stuff again. Think they are being shrewd and top negotiators but end up overpaying in panic or paying the same money for lesser players after missing out. Constantly goes back to a weak, dated approach to recruitment where we've got not idea how to value a player properly for the modern market. You'd think they'd get bored of being so incompetent but here we are, again.

 

Something else that is quite strange this window, we were heavily linked and rumoured to have got as far as bidding for three players in January -

- Orjasaeter £4m
- Kvistgaarden £?m
- Strelec £7.5m

Were the rumoured bids according to each of their club directors we have not gone back in for any of them. One has moved for a lower fee than previously quoted and the other two are still at the same club.

We obviously must have thought highly enough of them to put forward bids in January but we have now decided not to bother. I find that quite strange as all three players kept up their form since we were linked and none of them have had major injuries?

 

If Rangers finalise their transfer for Antman for 5M, then Go Ahead Eagles are not going to want to let Bruem go, have even less incentive to sell and are more likely to stick to their valuation.

Seems like Rangers are much closer to getting their deal over the line than we are. Which will have a knock on effect making it even harder and more expensive for us to get Bruem. Probably to the point it wouldnt be surprising if we give up on it completely.

 

I remember other important goals. I would consider it pretty successful and certainly Rodgers did. Reading between the lines, I think Norwich did too.

 

Right, right, because we were so dynamic before Rodgers.

 

Brendan Rodgers hopes Celtic will have another new face through the door this week.



The Hoops have had three bids kicked out by Go Ahead Eagles for £6million-rated midfielder Jakob Breum.


Celts are also locked in talks with Manchester City over a loan deal for promising defender Jahmai Simpson-Pusey.




And with the title defence kicking off this weekend, Rodgers hinted that a new signing is imminent.




He told Sky Sports: "Yeah, well, we hope this week there might be some news on that.

"Coaches and the transfer market don't move at the same pace. A coach always wants a player in immediately, but the transfer market doesn't always work like that.




There's a lot that goes into it - but it's also the reason for pre-season. You want your team together as quickly as you can so you can get some good work in, get the togetherness, get the spirit, everything formed.

"But, of course, we know that traditionally it can be a challenge. By the end of the window, hopefully that will be the case. In the meantime, we're working very, very hard.

"We're excited by what's here at the moment and looking forward to the weekend."


Kieran Tierney and Benji Nygren are among the six new Bhoys who have arrived at Parkhead over the summer.

But the champions have offloaded a dozen players and banked £17million from Nicolas Kuhn's sale to Como.




He said: "Listen, as I said, a coach will always want the players in. I think it's arithmetic. It's purely counting.

"We've lost players and we want to replace those players with quality. So it's not an opinion, it's where it's at.

"We've lost key players and we want to replace those as quickly as we can in order to keep developing.




very hopeful that we can do that."

Rodgers is desperately searching for more firepower having also lost Kyogo in January without replacing the Japanese goal machine.

He said: "For us it's tweaks because obviously last year we scored the most amount of goals in over 50-odd years of any Celtic team.


So that tells you there's a lot really good with the team. Clearly you want to improve each season.

"But I think the attacking department will always be the strength of my team.

"So that's something that we want to always improve on.





Whether that's through tactical ideas or players, it's an area that we always want to improve."

Celtic will discover who stands between them and the Champions League league phase when the playoff draw is made on Monday.

Fans have demanded the Parkhead board loosen the purse strings but Rodgers is refusing to hit the panic button.


He said: "For me the focus is very much on what's here. We know we have work to do and I'm hopeful that we can get that done by the end of the window.

"But in the meantime, the players have worked fantastically over the course of this pre-season.

"It's been nice with the guys are coming in. They've added that quality to the group.




We've got some younger players coming in, like young Callum Osmand, who's a young player for the future. It was a great opportunity for us to take him from Fulham, which was great.

"We still have work to do in the market, but I'm really excited. The focus is really on the players that are here, of course, and they've been working very, very well.

"Hopefully by the end of the month, as I said, we'll be a stronger squad for the end of the transfer window."

 

He's very good at the waffle. He said this week, the end of the month and the end of the window there. Loved him dodging the weaker or stronger than the end of last season question. He should have just said much weaker. He seems quite chilled and I can't tell if that's a good or a bad thing.

 

Aye