January Transfer window

Charlie Nic just admitted he’s scared of Rangers and Slippy G.

I’m personally more worried about Killie.

Charlie is a *.


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The media keep bigging up sevco and slippy that they're a real challenger now, they're not really any better than last season, we've just dropped a stupid amount of points keeping them in touching distance, it's all on us.

 

BRENDAN RODGERS has signed no fewer than 24 players for Celtic.

But the Hoops are amazingly in the black having raked in more money in sales.

Rodgers has attempted to put his own stamp on the team since arriving in May 2016.

The Northern Irishman though has often found himself at odds with moneyman Peter Lawwell.

He was left frustrated in his attempts to land top targets John McGinn and Cristiano Piccini in the summer.

The arrivals of Daniel Arzani and Maryan Shved also raised eyebrows after Rodgers admitted he knew little about them.

TOTAL – £30,850,000
Moussa Dembele (£500k)

Kolo Toure (free)

Scott Sinclair (£4.5million)

Dorus de Vries (free)

Cristian Gamboa (£1million)

Eboue Kouassi (£2.8million)

Jonny Hayes (£1million)

Kundai Benyu (free)

Olivier Ntcham (£4.5million)

Patrick Roberts (free)

Odsonne Edouard (£10million)

Marvin Compper (£1million)

Lewis Morgan (£300,000)

Charly Musonda (loan)

Scott Bain (free)

Jack Hendry (£1.5million)

Emilio Izaguirre (free)

Daniel Arzani (loan)

Youssouf Mulumbu (free)

Filip Benkovic (loan)

Oliver Burke (loan)

Timothy Weah (loan)

Vakoun Issouf Bayo (£2million)

Maryan Shved (£1.75million)* still to be confirmed




Yet despite the disappointments of recent windows, Rodgers HAS been backed by the Parkhead board.

Celts shattered the transfer record when they shelled out £10million to sign Odsonne Edouard on a permanent deal from PSG.

Olivier Ntcham joined for a sizeable fee, while the likes of Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair have commanded big salaries.

Overall, Rodgers has spent over £30m on new signings during a trophy-laden two-and-a-half years in charge.

That budget blows every other Scottish club out the water, and by some distance.

Importantly though, Rodgers has actually brought MORE money into the club through player outgoings.


The modest cross-border fee handed out to Fulham for Dembele turned out to be one of the club’s shrewdest ever investments.

After scoring 51 goals in less than a century of appearances, Dembele departed Parkhead as a double Treble winner.

He also banked the club a colossal profit following his £20m switch to Lyon – a Scottish club record.

The long-drawn pursuit of Scott Sinclair also paid dividends, with the former Aston Villa winger bagging Player of the Year in his debut season.

Like Dembele, Sinclair has been a fundamental factor behind Rodgers’ unprecedented success in Glasgow.

And it goes without saying that Rodgers is rightly idolised in the East End of Glasgow. But Celtic fans aren’t blinded by their faith.

While the ex-Liverpool manager has transformed the club’s fortunes, a notable number of misfits have also been purchased under his guard.


TOTAL – £33,515,000
Anthony Stokes (free)

Colin Kazim-Richards (undisclosed)

Carlton Cole (free)

Stefan Scepovic (£1million)

Charlie Mulgrew (end of contract)

Stuart Findlay (free)

Darnell Fisher (undisclosed)

Stefan Johansen (£2million)

Saidy Janko (undisclosed)

Kris Commons (end of contract)

Michael Duffy (free)

Efe Ambrose (end of contract)

Eoghan O’Connell (free)

Logan Bailly (free)

Leo Fasan (free)

Gary Mackay-Steven (£150k)

Emilio Izaguirre (£1.25million)

Nadir Ciftci (free)

Kolo Toure (retired)

Liam Henderson (£115k)

Charly Musonda (free)

Erik Sviatchenko (£1million)

Jamie McCart (free)

Stuart Armstrong (£8million)

Moussa Dembele (£20million)

Scott Allan (free)



Dorus de Vries was brought in to challenge Craig Gordon but was quickly deemed surplus to requirements.

Cristian Gamboa has failed to dislodge Mikael Lustig from the right-back berth, despite the Swede now well past his best.

Eboue Kouassi has yet to justify his big price tag, although he was cruelly ruled out for the season after sustaining a nightmare ACL injury.

Jonny Hayes looks a shadow of the player that saw him nominated for Scotland’s Player of the Year, just months before moving to Glasgow


And a special mention must be reserved for Marvin Compper… one of the club’s WORST ever signings. At a cost of £1m, the German has played just once and is draining around £20,000-a-week from Parkhead coffers.

So it’s fair to say there has been a mixed bag of successes and failures.

The summer exits of Dembele and Stuart Armstrong have left huge voids in the Scottish champions’ team.

Nevertheless, at a combined cost of £28m, both transfers made sense. The duo both saw their futures away from Scottish football, therefore a parting of ways was best for both parties.

Celtic’s transfer model is to buy small, sell big, and in these instances, the strategy worked perfectly, just like it did in the past with Fraser Forster, Virgil van Dijk, Victor Wanyama, Ki Sung-Yeung and Gary Hooper.

The Hoops have also netted seven-figure sums for Stefan Scepovic, Stefan Johansen, Emilio Izaguirre and Erik Sviatchenko; players who were on the fringes of Rodgers’ often bloated squad.

Calculating the net difference between incomings and outgoings, the Glasgow giants have roughly made a profit of £2,665,000. Pretty impressive, considering their domestic domination.

The fact a number of sales also remain undisclosed means it’s likely they have recorded an even bigger profit.

Obviously, that’s not including the £60m plus windfall the club has received from their participation in the Champions League and Europa League.

As things stand, Celtic’s balance sheet is the healthiest it has ever been. Recent financial results showed that the club’s revenue smashed through the £100m barrier for the first time.



Rodgers’ role in that cannot be underestimated. Celtic fans recently unfurled a banner aimed at the board, saying: “10 in a row is not a project – back Rodgers or lose him”.

Rodgers has often reiterated his desire to see out his contract at the club, which extends to summer 2021 – the year Celtic could win the ten.

But when the time does come for the iconic manager to leave his boyhood club, it will be interesting to see how things pan out both on and off the park.

 

The recruitment has been * poor.

 

Those loans aren’t always for free. Fees can be, and are usually, involved to get players in on loan. Just saying

 

Take it we're not signing any * then

 

Dembele throws that list out.

 

He’s an *. Fail to see how he comments on us when all he does is spend his time watching English football. Not a chance does he watch us more than the 4 times a season against sevco

 

Aye mate.

Just signed Billy Gilmour from Chelsea.


2 year loan.

Playing well for me so far on Fifa.

 

£10 million for Edouard their * it was nowhere near that in reality

 

Lawwell claimed £10m at AGM

 

Big * aye?

 

If he told me the time I'd check my watch.

 

Aye.

 

Sweet.

 

That’s what I said when I had cooked the chicken.

 

Nice..

 

Wow, 24 players signed, and only 2, maybe 3, are in and around the starting 11 now.
Not a great record by any means.
Let’s hope the new boys this January can put a better gloss on that!