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Most of you know I’m pretty fed up with our club’s seeming inability to get transfer deals done. We’re now gambling with Champions League qualification all over again because we’re not able to bring in more than one player. As we sit and watch the clock count down towards the deadline tonight (with no sign at all that any of these deals will be done before it arrives) I thought it might be worth taking a wee look back over other windows and rumours.
Specifically, let’s look at six transfer rumours that wouldn’t die.
Some stories drag on for a whole summer.
Others drag on and on for years …. and it’s these which fascinate me most.
One of them appeared to be resolved very recently … but may still be resurrected yet …
Steven Fletcher
We were first linked with Steven Fletcher in the “Wilo Flood window” when the need for a striker was chronic and we went out, instead, and purchased Dundee Utd’s midfield supremo. Fletcher would have reputedly cost us a little over £2 million, which the Celtic board are alleged to have balked at. Would they have changed their minds had they known the ridiculous sums this player would eventually be sold for? Oh most definitely.
Fletcher went to Burnley from Hibs, and as his time there neared its end he was linked with a move to us again. But he’d been playing in England, of course, and was now being touted at ridiculous prices which didn’t seem to be justified by his number of goals.
He want to Wolves for £6 million, an eye watering price when one considered we’d last paid that for Neil Lennon and before that for the strikers Sutton and Hartson. Was he as good as any of those guys? Nobody thought so, but even more bizarre was his move to Sunderland for double that fee. And from there … well, you’d have thought the rumours would have ceased.
Yet Steven Fletcher is the ultimate example of a transfer story that just won’t die. He’s been linked with our club in every season since leaving Scotland and in particular the last few windows, where he’s moved to Marseille on a free and then Sheffield Wednesday in this one.
His is the story that just goes on and on and on, seemingly without end, in spite of no actual evidence that we’ve made a move for him since he played here for Hibs.
James McFadden
Jesus, this one is annoying because he was linked with us three or four times and we allegedly gave him more than one chance to sign. Maybe it’s just me who thinks that signing for Celtic should be a once in a lifetime opportunity with no takebacks.
McFadden was linked with us when he was at Motherwell the first time. He allegedly had a chance to join us then, but it was Everton he moved to, and for a fee that was well within Celtic’s grasp. He failed to set the heather on fire at that club, and when they announced his availability we were linked with him yet again. When he moved to Birmingham thought it was for £6 million … a ridiculous sum of money … and he failed yet again.
In spite of this he was actually alleged to be in contract talks with our club when Everton came in for him and he opted to go back there. Insulting, or what? When he failed at Everton for the second time and went on trial with Motherwell we were linked with him yet again … but not a Celtic fan would have been happy had we decided to sign him. More moves followed, and he seemed to be linked with us every single time he left a club.
Thankfully none of them ever came to pass.
Darren Huckerby
For a while no summer would have been complete without a rumour linking Darren Huckerby to our club.
Fans were divided on whether they thought he was a mediocre player or just a really bad one; few wanted to see him in the Hoops.
Yet for reasons passing understanding this was one of those tales that purely and simply wouldn’t go away.
He played for a number of English clubs both before and after those summers of fun, with six clubs in seven years purchasing him and us linked with him at nearly every juncture. When he went to Leeds for £6 million that was the only time when he might have been said to be outside of our reach financially, and even then there was talk about it.
By the team he reached Norwich, where he spent five years, we were being linked with him in every single summer window.
It got ridiculous.
No transfer period was complete without his name coming up at least once. It was almost as if he and his people were determined to keep this one circulating. Maybe he was using us to get good deals from other clubs. Maybe he actually fancied a move here and was advertising his interest.
Maybe it was just typical Scottish lazy journalism.
But this was a story that went on and on and just wouldn’t go away.
Michal Kadlec
Jesus, remember this one? We’ve been linked with this guy three or four times now, a guy who almost did sign for us once and which seems to have given the media license to resurrect the story as often as they want, no matter how unlikely.
We were linked with him for the first time before he signed for Sparta Prague in 2005, and then again for each one of the three years he was there. When he was linked with Leverkusen in 2008 we were linked again, and then in 2013 when he went to Turkey.
This one is definitely just Lazy Journalism; whilst our interest was real back in 2005, and might even have been real in 2008, we had moved on by the time he went to Turkey; he was 29 then, past his peak, and Izzy was at the top of his own game.
Whilst we needed backup that’s all he would have been at that point but it didn’t stop the press taking a punt.
The irony, of course, is that Kadlec would have been a decent signing back in 2005, and then in 2008.
He was young and he had the stuff to be a big player.
Robbie Keane
Time and time again, we were linked with a move for the Irishman, but unlike with many of those deals we actually got this one across the line, albeit only on a loan basis, when it was already too late for the signing to have done us a whole lot of good.
Keano always said he wanted to play in the Hoops, like his namesake Roy.
Numerous opportunities came and went before it finally happened, but none were realistic possibilities; this guy went for as much money as any player ever has. His combined transfer fees could have paid off a substantial chunk of what Rangers died owing the taxman.
He signed for Coventry for £6 million and then for Inter Milan for £13 million. Leeds signed him next, for £12 million and it was then, back in 2002, when we might have had our best chance when Martin O’Neill wanted him as the Elland Road club slipped into oblivion. There were discussions, that much is clear, but when he left Leeds it was to Spurs for another fat chunk of change, a £7 million fee. When he left Spurs he was miles out of our reach in terms of his transfer worth; they sold him to Liverpool for £19 million plus add-ons … astonishing, and even more so when you consider that Spurs soon paid £12 million to get him back.
Almost a year to the day (364 to be specific) he was at Celtic Park, on loan. For all that money we got to take him for six months for free. The following year, with him still out of favour, we were linked with him again. This time he opted to go to West Ham.
Following that, he went to America, where he’s been ever since aside from a brief spell on loan at Villa.
And of course, during his time in the States he’s been linked with a move several times.
Now at 36 the rumours have finally been put to bed.
We got to see him in the Hoops for one half of a year, and it was a pretty decent one at that.
Juan Roman Riquelme
The Daddy of All transfer rumours, and the one which generated the most laughs.
It was a common joke on Celtic fans sites that we would make a last day swoop and secure the services of the brilliant Argentine. The best player linked with us never to actually play for us, there was a spell when every window was christened (before it opened) the Roman Riquelme window.
How close were we? Not very if you believe official sources. If, on the other hand, you like your transfer rumours courtesy of the Glasgow Taxi Drivers Network then we were very close indeed, on more than one occasion.
Indeed, it could have come to pass, as crazy as that sounds.
We were definitely interested (along with half of Europe) when he announced that he was leaving Barcelona in 2005.
But Villarreal was already his chosen destination.
In 2007, we were linked with him again; this is what sparked the annual Riquelme rumour, or so it seems. He chose Boca Juniors instead, but every time he hinted at wanting a return to Europe it would be flagged by either someone in the Scottish media (desperate for stories) or Celtic fans as proof that this time it could happen.
In the end, this is one of those stories that remained just that, whispered about on the forums (or shouted about in pubs; I remember one night in the Gallowgate being assured, not told but assured, that it was definitely on this time, that he would pull on the famous Hoops), much to the regret of every Celtic fan who ever saw him play … and indeed, we had a couple of opportunities to do so whilst he was at El Submarino Amarillo.
He retired from the game in January 2015, bringing the rumours to an end once and for all.
Which is almost a shame really.
The Riquelme rumour is definitely far sexier than what we’re left with; stories about Ryan Gauld and Robert Snodgrass on a permanent loop.