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

We're in a position where we can afford to sell Kuhn... but not Yang. Great job guys, well handled. * me.

 

Have we ever actually been properly prepared for a European qualifier?

I’m 30 and I’m struggling to remember any time in my lifetime that we have been … We’re not quite at the level of Biton at CB for multiple years for the qualifiers but we never actually seem to learn our lessons from this.

 

Not been prepared once in at least 20 years.

 

Only one that I can think of is Rodgers second season when despite having Bitton at CB we had a strong team with no major sales that summer. We beat Astana 8-4 on aggregate in the playoff.

 

A grim way of looking at it would be the money we sold kuhn for would be similar to our tax bill for the previous 3 years.

We are currently on course for spending more on tax for our profits than on players for the team this year.

 

There is a running theme under Rodgers that we have held on way way way too long in recruiting players in windows.. anyone wanna highlight one player (that we bought straight out so not ccv or jota) where we waited * around for weeks or even months and the deal worked out well in terms of player performance and value for money?



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Dembele but rumour was that deal was already done before Rodgers joined.

Ntcham was 11th July.

 

Replace Rodgers with Lawwell. This isn't a Rodgers issue, it's a boardroom issue. I can't remember a deadline day where we weren't running around chasing our tails.

 

I dunno I think there is an element of Rodgers turning his nose up at what he's offered on occasion, opting to wait for other players to become available..

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Maybe with good reason? He's been fed a whole host of terrible players he didn't want. I think we all can say by now he didn't have much input in the signings in his first transfer window back here and since then he wants more control on players. It's up to our scouting team to identify the profile of player he wants and then up to our recruitment team to get the deals done. Rodgers is the last person I'd blame here. Under Lennon and Ange we were * about on Deadline day trying to get loan deals over the line in areas we we were weak in so what's new?

 

Could count on 1 hand the amount of times I’ve on here this summer. It’s the same crap on repeat. Panic about signings, slag the board then we start the season play well, turns out some of the players we sign are actually good, win silverware then it all starts again next summer. I’ll just wait for the Footie to start and not really pay attention to transfers. Best way imo.

 

I think Rodgers saying recently that coaches always want players in early but the transfer market moves slower - was a coded message implying the club has been unduly slow to act

 

Tbh I think it's stupid that the transfer window stays open beyond the start of the season anyway.

 

True, I hate pre-season.

Not interested in the games and canny be arsed with the talk of signings either now, thank * the footballs back at the weekend.

 

When we talk about things moving slowly behind the scenes at Parkhead, I struggle to envision what that actually looks like.

Scouting has never been a simpler process. Thanks to stuff like the Football Manager, Footballia, and Wyscout databases, you can thoroughly scout pretty much any senior-level player just sat on your *. Initial enquiries have never been simpler either, with a lot of agents using Whatsapp and clubs accepting email enquiries. The actual processes of scouting and negotiation are quicker than ever and need involve far fewer people than at any point in the past.

You have to assume that the process at Parkhead is just insanely inefficient, with multiple stages of approval and numerous irrelevant people needing to see things and tick boxes before anything progresses. I genuinely believe that they must spend the majority of their time waiting for DD to get off the golf course to authorise a 500k bid on a 5m-valued player.

 

Not everything can be done using a laptop.. there's much more to consider.. trying to gauge if a player is right for the pressure that comes with playing for us, needs more that data..

In any case, the links seem to suggest a good calibre of player indetification .. getting them over the line seems to be the issue.

 

I always wondered what you looked like.

 

I think a lot of it is conservative and reactive which leads to a lot of dithering.

My hunch is that if you were to take for example the striker scenario. The thought process is along of the lines of - ok we spent 9M on Idah. How do we feel hes getting on? Is he ready? Whats the manager saying? He wants another striker in? Well lets see how Idah looks in pre-season first. 9M is a big outlay, lets not commit another big outlay until we are sure about Idah. We need to think about his re-sale value too.

We can bring in a cheaper option in the meantime. Lets get this guy our scouts have recommended - Yamada. We can get him for 1.5M. Ok good, very little risk here. Sign him. Lets see how he looks in training. Do we think he can contribute straight away this season? Do we still think we need strengthen here? What the manager saying? Ok still plenty of time before the window closes. Lets take some more time to assess Yamada before making any further calls.

Who else is around for under 5M? Will they accept 2M for him? What about 2.5M? What does the manager think of him? We can also play Maeda up front, maybe its better to play him up front and look for value for money wide players instead.

Multiply this over 4 or 5 positions and you get into a state of paralysis.

I think if we were really targeting progress in Europe there would be a more ruthless streak. The conversation would be more along the lines of How is Idah getting on? Well we cant bank on him to be anything more than a squad player right now. He just hasnt shown that consistency. We should aim to strengthen.

 

Im sure there's some sort of tax avoidance scheme we could use as I'm sure its been done before