[Official TC Thread] Celtic 25/26 Summer transfer window: Stage: Takes time to get quality in! Remember!

Pish.

Probably a sign they're thinking about opening the chequebook as he's been subtley slagging them up until this point.

 

Behave that’s pish

 

Maybe he threatened to go to Nottingham right before the Huns game?

 

Brendan giving the old birthday card pish.

 

After some positive links to guys like Dolberg.

We're gonna end up with Bamford aren't we?

 

Who knows.

But its fucken madness to try and sell your £9M striker on the eve of the Ibrox game.

 

Hey Prof

I don't need to remind you, but I will.
Idah 20 goals off the bench as a sub. Won us the Scottish Cup, got us into the Champions League, played a massive part in winning the league for us.
Sell our £9M striker for £6M ? That's a * deal.
Replace him with some guy who has got Type 1 Diabetes for £8/10M ?
That's fucken insanity running wild.

 

Celtic underground latest



Here’s the Anderlecht backstory, we had scouts at his game over the weekend, because, once his agent clocked that their 1-1 draw last week had left their Champions League hopes looking as lively as a Greggs vegan steak bake at closing time as the woman behind the counter tries in vain to convince you “there’s still some heat in it”, he started to phone round a few clubs. Scouts liked what they saw. Our football doctor scribbles out a prescription for the money men - 10 million euros will cure this ailment. Which, converted, is £8.5m. (Keep that number handy, it’ll matter in a second.) The agent tips off Anderlecht, the player’s keen, bags packed. He even starts prepping for Ibrox on Sunday - tetanus shots, garlic necklace, crucifix in his sock, the full works. Recruitment are told by the money men: aye, sounds grand, we’ll crack on. The lad says his goodbyes to his teammates. He’s on his way.
So you can imagine the shock when Celtic phone up Anderlecht - not with £8.5m, but with £7.8m. A full million euros less than what everyone involved had already agreed would close the deal. A bid so low it’s practically limboing it’s way to Belgium. And now, shockingly, here we are - no deal, no striker, no plan, no surprise









And spare a thought for poor Adam Idah. Said his big goodbyes at Lennoxtown yesterday - hugs, handshakes, the emotional montage music playing in his head. Only to wander sheepishly back in this morning like the guy who storms out of the pub after an argument, then realises he’s left his jacket on the back of the chair. If it were me, I’d have just phoned in sick. Better that than making eye contact with a dressing room full of people who already signed your leaving card.
A similar stalemate’s happening with Yang. The £1.5m fee with Birmingham is agreed, but until Tounekti’s through the door we can’t let him go. You’ve heard of a no-look pass? Well, this is a no-look signing, a strategy that, as our experience with Palma reminded us, works an absolute treat. But, hey, what’s 4.5m euro between friends? The problem is we can’t exactly turn up at Ibrox with ten men. This isn’t school football where you ask the opposition if one of their subs fancies pulling on your strip to make up the numbers. And to be fair, looking at their bench, we might actually be better off sticking with ten.









Now, before you go and boot the cat in frustration, take heart, we’re fairly sure Dolberg will be in the hoops soon. Will it be in time for Sunday? Who knows. Only our boardroom geniuses have the algorithm for that, and they guard it like it’s the Da Vinci Code.
Bowie’s trickier. That 9m euro problem above? That’s the simple stuff. We’ve earmarked the Hibs striker as the back-up option, not the main course. He’s fine with that, happy to sign. Hibs wanted us to open the bidding at £8m, you probably heard the laughter echoing round Kerrydale Street, before everyone sobered up and agreed that something nearer £4.5m with add-ons over a five-year stretch might actually do it. So naturally, we did what Celtic always do in these situations: we said, “We’ll get back to you.”









Why the delay? Because first we need to offload Kenny. Bolton fancy him, they’ve put £1.5m on the table, everyone’s happy. Everyone except Kenny, who fancies sticking around. And in a totally unrelated coincidence, definitely nothing to read into here, neither Celtic nor Bolton can get his agent on the phone. Makes you wonder how many desks there are to hide under in Celtic Park.
But let’s be positive, we’ve got Balikwisha. Well, we got him after his old team finally paid him what he was due for starting the season with them anyway. A player so good Celtic announced him four times on Facebook. And just imagine the state of us Celtic das trying to pronounce that. We’re still butchering Nygren and that only has two syllables. Give it a few weeks and half the stadium will be calling him Balaclava. Anyway, he’s here. As is our shiny new back-up left back. Only snag is we don’t actually have international clearance yet, so there’s a genuine chance he could become the first “Trialist” to line up in a Glasgow derby since about 1889. Which, to be fair, feels on-brand.









And there’s even chatter we might sneak a right-back into the squad on Monday. Because word is Tony Ralston thinks it’s finally time to spread his wings and actually be someone’s first-choice, instead of Celtic’s eternal bridesmaid. If he goes, he’ll go with our blessing and one lingering regret: that we never once adapted Rhinestone Cowboy into a chant for him. Imagine 60,000 people belting out “He’s a Ralston Cowboy…” and then some other stuff that I haven’t really thought through. Could’ve been glorious. But alas, it may never be. If the brickie moves on, he does so with our love, our respect, and our unforgivable failure as a fanbase to make Glen Campbell proud.
Other players we can expect to be clearing out their lockers on Monday include Bernardo, lining up a return to Portugal, and Trusty, who looks set to head back to Birmingham. Fair play to Chris Davies, the man’s basically running a one-man charity shop down there on our behalf. (And, yes, a polite doff of the cap to Darren O’Dea for Idah too. Every little helps.)
Daizen, on the other hand, was spotted last week poking around property in Park Circus. Now, hopefully it’s a family home he’s after - a safe wee nest for the kids, maybe a granny flat for when his mammy comes to visit - and not the first step in him turning into yet another Tory landlord. You know the type, buy-to-let parasites who see homes not as places for people to live but as Monopoly squares to chuck on the “portfolio.” * knows we’ve already got enough of that breed sitting in the Celtic boardroom, buying bricks like they’re players on Football Manager and calling it “wealth creating strategy.” Daizen feels different, though. You seen that picture of him supporting the foodbank? That’s my type of Celtic player. He strikes you as the type who’d buy a place to raise a family, not to squeeze students for nine hundred quid a month to share a damp broom cupboard. Long may it stay that way - we can’t afford to lose another good man to the dark arts of property speculation never mind Brentford. His hands are too wee to be grasping anyway.
The bigger question, though, is why are we only now starting to make moves in the market? Ah, but you see, that’s the strategy. The grand plan. We wait until this point in the window, when clubs are desperate to sell, to get “value.” Worked wonders last season, didn’t it? But don’t worry - this time we’re absolutely, definitely not going to get stung paying over the odds. No, no. This year it’s different. It always is

 

He's four games in, you can't judge a guy in four games, it's not even fair.
Give him this year, and if he does not cut the mustard, then I will agree with you.
I've just listed what Idah has done for us in 18 months, probably repaid his £9M fee twice over to the Celtic Board FC.
What has our £11M Engels done in the same time ?

 

Surely we dont lose him for the sake of an extra million or so ffs, jesus wept.

 

* this window man, just play the kids. Murray & Donovan have shown they've got it, there must be forwards around who can step up.

 

He’s got a Hard on for Idah, nothing will change his mind

 

Yes. If Idah leaves 2 strikers “ideally”.