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

This made me howl.

 

Oh 100% I agree about Yang. Just think Go Ahead had their one season out of a 100 last year. Have to see how players like Antman and Breum will do when they are somewhere else. But its always telling if the big three are not after your players in Holland(specially for a decent price).

 

It's coming up a month since Kuhn joined Como and the board will have known for a week or so before that that he was going. Not only have we not replaced him we don't even have a sign that we're close to doing so. With what BR said about trying to 'convince' the board we need new players it appears, unbelievably, that they thought it would be fine to sell Kuhn and not replace him. With this situation, and the lack of other proper signings, I honestly can't work out what the board's plan is for this season. Do they just assume we'll stay on top? Do they think the squad is fine? Would be nice to hear their thoughts buy they rarely address supporter's fears directly.

 

Totally agree. I’ve said it in other threads so close to a footballing disaster. An example of why we need deals done quicker was outlined when BR said at the weekend regarding Tierney. Paraphrasing but the context was; he’ll be better when he learns more of how we play, the speed, the areas to take up. He’s been here all pre-season for fucksake!!! I hate this board of ours!!!

 

I doubt the board are unwilling to sign players. I think theres probably been a breakdown over a combination factors.

The options Rodgers have been presented with dont meet his requirements. I think the board are reverting to type and looking to repeat the Kuhn trick of getting in 3M-4M type players with high sell on margin potential. Rodgers wants more proven quality rather than development players. They has come to an impasse where Rodgers wont sign off on the targets they want but the board are reluctant to go beyond that.

Rodgers contract - with no commitment to sign a new deal the board may not be prepared to go outside their comfort zone in terms of their recruitment strategy and higher spends.

No guaranteed CL football - a similar spend to last year without CL football would probably put us into loss making territory for the year. The board may not be prepared to risk that being extremely conservative.

Last years transfer window - the board may feel moving into the higher spend bracket wasnt a success in terms of getting value for money and have decided they dont see this as best practice.


I think the best case scenario is that the board and Rodgers have come to an agreement that they will look to target the higher cost players Rodgers wants pending on the condition that he gets us into the CL and we have the guaranteed money from that. That will allow allow the board to sanction more spend and Rodgers is ok with waiting longer for the replacements if he it means he can get higher value options.

 

All of that sounds highly plausible except the last paragraph. Failing to strengthen the team/squad before the qualifier jeapordises our chances of qualifying and therefore both the board and BR lose out.

 

We should definitely have strengthened the forward options by now. But hard to know how much Rodgers has played a part in that. It feels like hes holding out for better options than he feels the club are looking at. We probably could have got at least one guy in by now I think if Rodgers had been prepared to go for it.

But maybe its boiled down to either get cheaper level players in before determining the outcome of CL or wait until thats been navigated and target a different level of player.

With the reserves we have it seems needless to have to wait but given the enormous difference the CL money makes to revenue its not unlikely the board are wanting to see how that pans out before sanctioning any big spends.

 

That is a million-dollar-smile right there

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As highlighted, we have no logical reason to be waiting. Pay the money, push on as a club and have an other crack at it after showing up well in the new format already. The rewards are there and waiting, all of it becomes increasingly obtainable by spending the money that is already there.

 

That's how I see it.

I just cant understand this board. By dint of being penny pinching *, you'd think they'd love equally, making hand over fist.

Every signing comes with its own risk in terms of if they work or not, but at the same time, if we had a best in class recruitment and scouting, or at least to Scottish standards, somewhat comparable to other clubs around Europe known for their ridiculous ability to find new players every year.

We could easily have signed a new RW, LW, CB and maybe a new ST where most are instrumental in getting us to CL proper, then pull off a Kuhn in the league and CL and we could sell two of them for £50mill combined. I know its easier said than done, but at the same time, there are too many clubs around Europe now that are well renowned for their own recruitment departments that it is unacceptable Celtic still have made zero effort to develop anything of the sort so we'll never know if it could be done. I'm pretty sure it could personally, but our board would rather lean into lazy troupes of signing a certain type of player

 

Said it for months the minute they started going on about the path in a few years to the UCL becoming impossible then it was time to hold back on the cash. Rodgers leaving next summer also and the perceived failure of the big money signings is the perfect idea for them to say it doesn't work for us.

Board members running to the media with this about engles/idah also and how unhappy they where with brendan comments to date reeks of them hoping for failure.

Everyone will just stand back and accept it. I am steadfast in my thoughts to this window, I knew not to expect too much, a few high profile departures and less than a £10m outgoing on some punts and a loan deal here and there.

The sqaud we have today will be the squad we take into the qualifiers with JSP added.

 

See this nonsense that we wait to see if we’re in the Champions League to see if we buy any quality.

It’s just another attempted justification of the utter negligence and waste of potential of this football club.

A plethora of utter bollocks.

Have we ever actually invested significantly after getting through a qualifier?

For a start, we barely win any as we’re always grossly underprepared and get dumped out by Maribor or Cluj or some other Aberdeen equivalent.

Secondly, the only player I remember us buying after getting through a CL play off was Cristian Gamboa for about 500k.

The waiting game doesn’t get you “quality” or players for cheaper deals either contrary to their myth peddling.

You get quality by paying the going rate for the player during the window.

By waiting, the player misses the crucial pre season period and we end up grossly overpaying due to desperation- see Engels, Trusty, and Idah.

* scunnered by all of this.

 

It's obvious that the board don't think our fans are entitled to anything to do with the running of the club - even though it's the fans who buy the season tickets, buy the merchandise and buy the match day food and drink. If only we had a board who genuinely cared

 

Absolutely dire this now, isn't it.

Even the speculation in the papers has really died down this last week.

What's the point of selling players for £10m, £16m etc. if we're going to make no effort to reinvest.

 

@Mr Shelby please don't let anyone combine this thread with next January's again.. especially that @Callum McGregor don't think I could take it..

 

Quality takes time to bring in remember.

We can get even better Quality if we qualify for the CL remember.

Deadline day, Celtic are chasing random loan players in a panic.

Day after deadline day: we tried but just couldn't get the quality needed.

There's not another team in the world as bad as us with teansfers. I refuse to believe there is.