[Official TC Thread] Celtic 25/26 Summer transfer window: Stage: Something Stinks and it's not happylosses' sweaty baws

Would prepare ourselves for no signings until last week of window.

 

I really didn't think the window would go like this.

I wanted to give the board some benefit but clearly their patterns of behaviour are just * predictable.

Never proactive building for a position of strength, always deliberately firefighting just enough so the house doesn't burn down and the occupants are just grateful enough thay have questions but never do anything.

 

Made a net profit of over £35m.

Nice one!

 

Nobody will be in by the qualifiers - think you can count on that.

Best case scenario is it goes similar to last Summer window and we spend a decent wedge late in the window (hopefully on better players this time)

We have got away with the gamble so far with rangers dropping easy points and we have got lucky with the CL draw getting one of the weaker opponents.

If our luck holds and we get through the CL tie and get some quality in the last week it may yet be salvaged

 

Maybe we can play the balance sheet at RW.

 

When you go into a game as important as UCL playoff, the minimum work you expect to be done transfer-wise is that gaps in your squad have been filled.

Yes, you might still be on the lookout for an extra piece of quality or two to add to what you've got, a real gem of a player that you know will enhance you further. But if you've sold your first-choice winger and striker, then you absolutely should've had their replacements in the door by now.

Your squad should be more or less there by now, give or take anything popping up late on. To not have a new winger in by Thursday is inconceivable.....yet here we are about to somehow go through with it.

 

Our squad is garbage. It's the worst it's been in a long, long time.

Utter humiliation in Europe awaits if we don't get the finger out (we won't).

 

Stephen McGowan


Despite signing seven players, only two of Celtic’s new bhoys are first-team starters. And when Kieran Tierney and Benjamin Nygren combined for the first goal at Pittodrie it illustrated the point that, in football, you get what you pay for.

Five minutes into his second stint as manager Rodgers was asked for his thoughts on the window which delivered Nat Phillips, Paulo Bernardo, Luis Palma, Gustaf Lagerbielke, Maik Nawrocki, Kwon Hyeok-kyu, Yang Hyun-jun, Tomoki Iwata, Marco Tilio and Odin Thiago Holm.

“I think if you ask any manager they will always be wanting more,” he said diplomatically. Two years later, Yang and Bernardo are the only two left in the same postcode as the first team.





The following window passed with just two new signings. Adam Idah arrived on loan from Norwich and Kuhn signed in a permanent deal. Once again, supporters – like the man who signed them – felt short changed.

Rodgers offered the view that the club “could be a little braver in terms of bringing in another level of player,” adding “you bring in players for a minimal fee and then they make the club a lot of money.”

Persuading them to reinvest it is the hard part. Last summer, procrastination over signing players provoked some exasperation from the manager heading into the final days of the window.



We shouldn’t have been getting into this last week in the position we’re in,” said Rodgers in the midst of a late scramble to sign Idah, Arne Engelsand Auston Trusty for a total of £25m. “That’s the reality.”

Engels and Trusty arrived for over-inflated fees on August 30, taking a hammer and chisel to the boardroom view that the best deals are done in the final days of the window.

At the beginning of this year, Celtic sold top striker Kyogo Furuhashi and failed to replace him. Rodgers acknowledged that the window, “wasn’t ideal,” adding, “we have to, as a club, now go away and look at that like we do every window.”

The champions reported cash reserves of £65.4m last December and, two months into this current transfer window, have raked in around £25m from sales. As yet they have spent around £3m on new players and while they’ll bring in more in the final weeks, it’s far from clear that they’ll do it in time for the Champions League signing deadline.






The failure to get a couple of wingers in the door already is hard to fathom. They lost Jota to serious injury and sold Kuhn to Como for £17m. And as soon as the football department identified Jakob Breum of Go Ahead Eagles as a player worth signing, it was up to the men in grey suits to get the deal done instead of sucking in their breath and kicking the tyres like time wasters on the forecourt of the local second-hand car showroom.







Fixated with securing ‘value for money’, offers of £1.5m, £1.75m plus add-ons then £3m went in for a player valued somewhere between £5m and £6m. As yet, Breum is no closer to moving to Glasgow and and he’s not the only player to be scouted, approved by the football department then vetoed by money men who don’t appear to trust their judgement.

 

Jota, Maeda, Shin (unknown quantity) I'm fine with. We need three attacking players of good quality. I'd accept one loan with option to buy given Jota is coming back but we need to people capable of pushing.

Forrest is winding down, Yang needs a loan, Idah is Idah.

It's actually insane that we've not signed anyone.

 

Board where never backing him this window. The contract situation dictated that. I dont know how anyone can not understand how this window would pan out.

 

We will most likely take in over £50m this summer if daizen exits. To spend £3m to date and indication shows their is nothing going on currently then are we doing same as we do every year. Go into last week looking for 5 players ending up with 3 and manager saying we need to have done more. Listen we can all moan and groan. Board dont give a *. Anyone see lawwell at John Fallon funeral today he looks * seething the *.

 

The way we're dealing with transfers, you think we were in Administration. This is a dismantling of the team by the board. Zero communications either only what the manager is saying.

We really are ignorant novices at the footballing side of things. Using football to support the suits drive to be another one of their side businesses.

They totally embody how powerful men run government's across the world tight now. Power hungry self profiteering *!

 

Everyday I punish myself by logging on to see if we have signed anyone only to be met by sheer disappointment and anger. I utter a few sweary words and my Mrs just says "why do you even bother now as its alwaysthe same". Even she knows about our board and how most of us a feeling

 

Bitter twisted poisonous auld *. Even at a man's funeral scowling and as for that shitebag MacKay next to him, * rats!

 

Surely a week further down the line we have moved past pitchforks?

 

While he has absolutely been a problem for the way we are run for years, I don't think he's the issue. He's part of the machine but let's face it, it all starts and ends with the shareholders and more so, Desmond.

 

Too many times players agents have named the * for issues.

Kramaric - lawwell left them sitting in the car park
Peraud - lawwell wouldnt respond to the negotiations
Fletcher - lawwell wouldnt up the bid
Mcginn - lawwell openly lowballing hibs cause of who Johns granda was and we would just wait to last days of window.

Probably more we dont know about too he's poison.

 

He is poison but I think the way the major shareholder has us operating is the far bigger issue. There's a reason why Nicholson and Lawwell seem to be running us the exact same way and the only guy to show any sort of ambition in the way of changing us was given the heave ho.