The transfer window is sometimes a drag.
I know most people hate it. If there was one day on which you could get all your business done, and only one, then people would probably prefer it that way rather than go through the monotony of weeks of speculation followed by inaction.
That’s some people. I love the transfer window, or the transfer silly season as some call it.
Because there’s a new tale every day.
This one has been no exception. This one has not been short of entertainment. It has, in truth, been anything but boring.
This is a selection of my favourite stories from this Celtic transfer window so far.
Some are about players allegedly departing and some are about targets we’ve looked at and might still be.
I’ll try to make them as up to date as I can, with the latest info that’s doing the rounds at the present time. Of course, knowing my luck – this has happened to me twice already since the window opened – this will go live just as one of these deals gets over the line ….
TWO WASTED WEEKS AND AN UNHAPPY ENDING.
As James already pointed out in his article earlier, the David Turnbull saga is the sad story of this transfer window, one without a happy ending for anyone involved. It provided no end of drama over the course of its two week running time.
First, we made a bid and that bid was rejected. At that point there was a danger that this would turn into another John McGinn type situation, with the clubs unable to agree a fee until someone from England stepped in and pulled the rug out from under us.
But, in the first major shock of this window, Celtic turned up the heat and made Motherwell a barn-storming offer which they club accepted at once. Indeed, in their excitement to accept it they tweeted it to the world, which in hindsight was probably a mistake.
Celtic brought the player to Celtic Park for talks, as everyone knows, and as everyone knows those talks failed.
Celtic issued a very public rebuke to the player and his agent, and said it was a “take it or leave it” type deal. At that point, we all thought it was dead.
In fact, James argued that it should be.
Then we got another twist; the move was back on and Celtic were in talks with his agent to see if there was room to manoeuvre.
Something had changed in the dynamic, but what was it?
Whatever it was, the player and his agent seemed happy to get back around the table and Celtic was up for it. It was a surprise, but we were happy to take it.
Then suddenly it was off again, and it was off the whole way.
Celtic withdrew the contract offer and the bid.
They were “moving on to other targets”. That was that.
On the night Celtic pulled out, Norwich stepped in and they bid what we had, their offer was accepted, the player went down to meet with them and there was not a single person who thought we had a chance.
But all of a sudden, everything changed.
He went to Norwich, heard them out, knew there was more money on the table … and he picked Celtic anyway.
Not only was the deal back on, but the player had turned the situation completely around.
He was even allowed to be photographed for a CelticTV interview in a Celtic top … talk about jinxing yourself.
Days went by without a word, and suddenly the deal was in doubt all over again.
This time there was to be no dramatic ending which upended the situation.
Celtic’s meticulous medical had found a serious underlying issue.
The boy needs surgery.
We wanted to take him off Motherwell’s hands for the duration, give him the best treatment we could and see if he was fit to play … and in that scenario we were going to pay them the full fee.
They said no. He stays where he is.
The deal looks dead again … although January may offer us another shot at it.
A SINGLE GOALIE STORY.
Do Celtic need a goalkeeper?
This is a question which a lot of fans are asking, and it’s a question Neil Lennon has got to be asking as well.
Some wonder if Gordon is going to make it all the way back, and others wonder if either he or Bain really is what we’re looking for. It is one of the key areas of any team, and it’s no wonder that successive Celtic bosses signed a new goalie early in their tenures.
But will Neil Lennon do the same?
There haven’t been a lot of stories about goalkeepers in the last few weeks, but there was one that kind of jumped out at me; Asmir Begovic.
On the surface of it, this one seems very unlikely, but the story has been doing the rounds and it is pretty persistent, refusing to go away. The problem would be the transfer fee; nobody in Scotland is going to pay a high seven figure sum for a goalie.
Yet it remains true that the player who signed for Bournemouth last season doesn’t seem to be in the plans of manager Eddie Howe, and whilst Celtic will certainly not pay EPL prices for him on a permanent deal you wonder if a loan isn’t being floated.
Depending on the price tag for that, Bournemouth might be inclined to do business.
Begovic is not a goalkeeper who is going to come into Celtic to be anyone’s backup though.
If a deal of any sort went through he’d be getting signed as a starter, and would expect to be.
RIGHT BACK: THE PROBLEM THAT WON’T GO AWAY.
Since the window opened, we’ve lost Mikael Lustig, Jeremy Toljan and Gamboa.
Three right backs gone, and none of them would have been a guaranteed starter had they stayed.
This is the position that’s been bothering fans, and the club, for a few years now.
There have been names thrown about, of course, but none of them on the level of just two years ago when we were linked with the superb right back at Atalanta and with a move for a guy who ended up at Valencia; they are the ones that got away, and no mistake.
Since this window opened we’ve been linked with a veritable Who’s Who from around football, mostly England.
George Baldock at Sheffield Utd, ex-Celtic right back Adam Matthews (available on a free, and as a backup I think most would take that), Arsenal’s Carl Jenkinson, Paddy McNair, Kilmarnock’s young Scottish defender Stephen O’Donnell and, lately, Luton’s Jack Stacey.
All told, he’s a very fine footballer and would do a good job in the Hoops.
That deal is probably the best sounding of all of them so far.
On top of that, a mooted move for Peter Ankerson of Copenhagen proved to be just paper talk; Celtic flatly denied any interest in the player.
This is the problem that just won’t go away. It is right Celtic are said to be taking their time on it and not just scooping up someone in a panic buy … but we’ve got our first European game in a few short weeks and a lot of people are beginning to … well, panic.
LEFT BACK RUMOURS AND THE STORY THAT JUST WON’T SHUT UP.
If right back is the position that refuses to stop drawing attention to itself, then what can you say about the Kieran Tierney transfer saga?
If it already feels like we’ve had months of this, it’s no surprise since we can say for sure that we have.
In fact, we’ve had years of it, years and years.
It has dragged on for so long now it’s like a record on repeat; it’s annoying when you focus on it, but it’s so familiar now it’s like background noise.
Does this year feel different though? Well, yes and no.
It feels no different in that no club has matched what Celtic believes to be an appropriate valuation for the player, but it is certainly different in that we appear to have let clubs know what that fee is.
There are a number of distasteful things about the whole way this has been done though, foremost amongst them being the way Arsenal have continued to drip feed every detail to the press in a clear-cut effort to pressure Celtic and unsettle the player.
That Celtic haven’t simply refused to deal with them over this public pursuit is one of many things about it that doesn’t sit right with me, and I suspect other Celtic fans.
There is clearly something happening with this one, and until Celtic definitively says that Kieran is staying at least until January the media is going to continue to run and run and run on this story.
It does seem to be the case though that we’re actively seeking players on the left side of defence; the Frenchman Romain Perraud and Rapid Vienna’s Boli Mbombo are heavily linked, with offers said to have gone on for them both.
There’s also alleged – media inspired – interest in Kilmarnock’s Greg Taylor.
As a backup to one of the other two that would do … but as a first choice replacement for Kieran I think all of us would be frankly horrified and our noses seriously out of joint.
Sign one of them and the rumours about Tierney will reach fever pitch, although it’s a well known fact that with Izzy having left we need two anyway …
THE CENTRAL DEFENCE: A MARQUEE SIGNING OR A STEAK FROM ALDI?
If you’d asked any Celtic fan before this window opened what the key area of the team which needed work was, every one of them would have identified the central defence without even having to think twice about it. And they’d have been correct.
This was before our entire cadre of full-backs left, of course, leaving us just one player at left back and nobody but Tony Ralston on the right.
Nevertheless, it was the area where we most needed to see movement and signs of life, and we’ve sure got them.
It’s a truism of being in Celtic cyberspace that you know how well we’ve solved a problem by examining it in direct proportion to how crazy it makes the residents of La La Land, and over the signing of Christopher Jullien the majority of them have gone full-scale nuts.
If you haven’t listened to the notorious Clyde podcast where a number of their fans call to berate Keevins on what constitutes a “marquee signing” you’re in for a treat.
Track it down and laugh your backside off.
Is Jullien a top player or just a steak from Aldi?
We’ll all get to be the judge of that soon enough, I suppose.
But this is a seriously good move on the surface of it, and a big money signing the likes of which few of us expected.
I thought it sounded like a real shot in the dark, this one, but here we are nonetheless.
It might be the most significant thing we do in this window, although you hope there’s more of the same to come. It plugs one hole though.
Neil has said he expects there to be more; rumours continue to circulate about Filip Benkovic coming back up for another full season.
Mathias ‘Zanka’ Jorgensen is another; today the Huddersfield centre back is allegedly the subject of a bid from Fenerbahce.
That door would appear to be closed.
So too is the one linking us with ex-Chelsea centre back Tomas Kalas, who Bristol City are expected to sign for a whopping nose-bleed transfer fee which makes the Tierney offer from Arsenal look like the giant piss-take John Hartson rightly says that it is.
We’ll see what transpires in this part of the pitch, but there are only a handful of stories linking us with central defenders and none appears to be more than tittle-tattle, including the one about Paddy McNair, of Middlesbrough.
Nevertheless, Neil confirms that they want to bring in at least one more centre back … musict to our ears.
LUCA CONNELL AND A WHOLE LOT OF MIDFIELD RUMOURS.
The central midfield area is one of the most important to the team, and that’s where the bulk of the rumours have come from.
We’ve been linked with an assortment of players in that role, with most of the stories being clear-cut rank nonsense.
Some even suggested that we had tried to sign Ibrox’s Joe Aribo.
The garbage that’s been written about that one angle alone could have overflowed a landfill.
Gerrard himself got in on the act, although there is exactly zero proof that we ever made a bid and indeed every reason – bidding £3.5 million for a Motherwell youth who plays in the same role – to think that we didn’t.
We have signed young Luca Connell for central midfield; that’s one deal that’s definitely done, although it isn’t going to be the last, either in or out.
There’s much speculation about the future of Olivier Ntcham as we all know and the club has been heavily linked to Rekeem Harper, who might well be the most exciting midfield need we’ve heard.
He is out of contract today.
We’ll find out what happens there in the next week I suppose, but cross your fingers that we’re not out of that one yet because he is quality and would be the signing of the whole summer in the opinions of those who’ve watched him.
Connell himself isn’t half bad from what we’ve heard, and the Bolton fans are beyond gutted that he’s left them.
He can play a role, but perhaps not right away.
The club has been active in letting some people leave at least; one of them is Youssef Mulumbu who we’ve let go.
It’s not even close to being a surprise, and that we’ve done so swiftly suggests that maybe we’re nearer a signing in this area than many of us thought.
CALLUM MCGREGOR AND THE REVENGE OF THE RAT.
There’s an interesting story about Callum McGregor doing the rounds, and I’ve given it a specific section because it warrants one.
The story goes that Rodgers wants him and is willing to offer a sum of money unspecified … and Filip Benkovic.
The idea is just ridiculous.
If Rodgers thinks that’s him doing us a favour he better think again.
Celtic has said McGregor is not for sale; that hasn’t stopped the rumour factory from working full-tilt on stories about how we might still be willing to sell him.
It won’t happen, and especially not to Leicester.
Rodgers has really burned his bridges here and not just with the fans.
The directors have roughly the same view we do of him.
For him to even suggest that he take one of our players is insulting. That he would think for a second that we might sell Callum McGregor to him – and for a fee that is frankly bordering on offensive – shows how self-absorbed this guy is.
McGregor will stay. The club could not be clearer on that.
If Rodgers wants to unsettle us further – the revenge of the rat, as we’ve taken to calling it at CelticBlog Towers – he can do it by offering £6 million for Craig Gordon, the same fee he allegedly turned down when Chelsea offered it a couple of years back.
Anything else and we ought not to pick up the phone.
TOM ROGIC AND A CURIOUS COMMENT FROM LENNON.
Tom Rogic is another Celtic player who’s been linked with a move away from the club, and there are issues about how highly Neil Lennon rates him.
Whilst there has been nothing definitive on this one – not even a bid or a rumour of a bid to generate the heat – questions continue to be asked about his long-term future at the club and how he will cope in the manager’s changed system which doesn’t seem to leave a lot of room for his role.
Now, Rogic is injured right now and that’s a fact.
Some in the media want to turn that into a bigger story than it is, but in truth it’s why he’s not on the tour with the club.
Rogic’s injury issues are a fact of life with him, and you don’t need to spin conspiracy theories here.
The attempted signing of David Turnbull asked a big question about Tom’s future.
Had we signed Turnbull, would Rogic even have one at Celtic Park?
With Callum capable of playing as a number 10, Shved and Forrest being used there experimentally so far on the tour, with Christie more than impressive there last season, isn’t there already a question mark?
And I’ll go you one better; Neil was talking about the Turnbull deal just the other day and he said for the record that even if Turnbull had been signed, he would still have tried to bring in another midfielder in the attacking area.
That might be the clearest suggestion yet that Rogic is facing the exit door.
A STRIKING ADMISSION … BUT NOTHING TO SUGGEST WE’RE CLOSE TO A DEAL.
Whether he’s just got no faith in Bayo or doubts about Griffiths, or if he wants to play French Eddie outside on the left, it is clear that he has not changed his mind on what he said just after the end of the last campaign; a striker is a priority.
This is probably the area with the fewest Celtic transfer rumours.
Aside from my own jokey suggestion that we should go for Daniel Sturridge – I wasn’t joking, by the way – there have been three transfer stories linking us to front men.
There is the story about Gary Hooper, but it would seem highly improbable because Lennon has also suggested that what we should be looking for is a target man type footballer, and Hooper certainly isn’t that.
Nevertheless, Lennon knows him and knows he scores goals.
That’s why the story is so difficult to completely shake off.
But the notorious Celtic hit-list had two striker’s names on it; Lys Moussett at Bournemouth and fellow Frenchman Neil Maupay at Brentford.
That both hail from a country where we’ve had success with players, and from which we just bought Jullien, is interesting and kind of suggestive.
But Moussett has scored very few goals – although he ticks the target man box with aplomb – and Maupay will certainly have other suitors who can probably offer more money in transfer fees and salary than we could ever hope to muster.
He would be a sensational signing, of course, and the idea of teaming him up with French Eddie is about as mouth-watering as you could hope for … but if there’s anything going on involving either player it’s being done very deep in the background because not a word has leaked about either being involved in discussions with us.
Nor is there any rumour about any other striker.
If Lennon wants one, then it’s going to be something from left-field, I reckon.
The Rumour Guy is an un-named Celtic fan and blogger who lives on the run and stops just long enough to write 3000 word articles on Celtic’s transfer business.
