I’m bracing myself for a long weekend.
Today, I find myself returning again and again to the same subject: this abysmal transfer window. Although I’m approaching it from three different angles today—one concerning our UEFA coefficient, another about dispelling the notion that this is somehow a “normal” transfer window, and finally, this angle about a perception problem—even I’m starting to find the subject tiresome, frustrating, demoralizing, and, frankly, sickening.
I will be heartily glad when this damnable window is shut because it’s been a source of stress, irritation, and growing, gnawing anger for far too many months. I don’t think I’m alone in that, and that’s what I want to talk about now.
This morning, the Daily Record ran an article claiming that our bid for Polish midfielder Mateusz Bogusz, who plays in the MLS for LAFC, falls well short of LA’s valuation.
I’m not here to talk about the Daily Record as a credible source—not in so many words. In fact, no one trusts that newspaper to get its facts right or to know what’s going on with Celtic, although this article is by Michael Gannon, which may hint that he’s been steered from inside the club to prepare us for a letdown.
But in some ways, that’s exactly what I want to talk about.
Because although no one trusts the Record, people trust Celtic’s board of directors even less now. This is why so many of us find it easy to believe that the club might be penny-pinching, low-balling the offer, dragging our feet, or otherwise messing around. We find it easy to believe because, all summer long, that’s exactly what it’s looked like.
Bear in mind those words—they’re important: All they’ve appeared to do.
It doesn’t matter what the truth is. For all we know, the club has been working diligently behind the scenes this whole time, trying to do business and being genuinely unlucky that it hasn’t managed to get it done. It doesn’t matter if that’s true. Nobody believes it.
And the reason nobody believes it is because no one trusts the board. No one trusts the chairman. No one trusts the CEO. No one trusts the absentee shareholder. No one trusts the pygmies and nodding donkeys who sit around the boardroom table, not making policy but following orders. Nobody trusts them to act in the best interests of the team—only the balance sheet.
If they can save a few bucks, they’ll try to. If they can make a few more by selling off a couple more first-team assets, they won’t hesitate to do that either.
I’m on record as having said that I don’t believe they’ll do that.
I don’t believe Kyogo will go. I don’t believe Hatate will be sold. I don’t believe we’ll allow Carter-Vickers to leave—not in this window, and certainly not all at the same time, no matter how much is on the table. This board may be self-interested, arrogant, and out of touch, but they are not, to the best of my knowledge, maniacs.
And that’s what they would have to be.
But I find myself in a strange minority on this one. All around me are people who believe the worst of these guys. All around me are people who are mentally bracing themselves for this window to deteriorate in the next seven days rather than improve.
None of them is convinced that we will emerge from it stronger.
I don’t believe we’ll emerge from it stronger in any significant way, but my view on this is sunny optimism compared to how others are seeing it.
What do we really know about the bid for Mateusz Bogusz?
According to initial reports, we’ve offered around £8 million.
That sounds like a lot of money to me for a guy who multiple sources value at around half of that. It sounds like a lot of money for a player in that league who’s only 22. And although there was talk of other European clubs being interested, we are, at the moment, the only ones making a bid.
According to the same newspaper now claiming there’s a hitch in the deal because LAFC wants more money than we’re willing to offer, we were in advanced negotiations, and the deal was progressing nicely just the other day.
So, in fact, there is nothing in the public domain that suggests we are penny-pinching, low-balling, or anything else in this case—simply that LAFC thinks it can squeeze us for a few more bucks.
They may get away with that, and they may not.
But it doesn’t matter what’s true and what’s not. All that matters is what people believe, and people believe that this board couldn’t care less about the squad, the manager, or the fans.
There are only two ways that a negative perception can go: You either shoot it down, or you confirm it.
Shooting this down will take work. It will take effort. It will take blood, sweat, and tears. Completing the signing of Bogusz would help repair the negative perception, but people would remember that it was only done because O’Riley was gone, and we were sitting on even more money. Completing the signing of a halfway decent centre-back would go some way toward changing the narrative and general feeling about the club that exists among many fans. But if there’s not a corresponding signing of a left-back, that goodwill will be largely erased.
I don’t envy the people at the club who have to challenge and defeat the negative perception, but I don’t feel sorry for them either because they created it. They could have got this job done a lot sooner than they have, and I’ll be talking about that at greater length later today.
A piece on that will be up in the afternoon.
Had this window started properly, had it gone properly up until now, had the club done its business in a timely fashion and impressed the hell out of us with the quality of the players it brought in, that would have cooled everyone down, and we wouldn’t be here in the final week wondering what mess we might yet make of it.
The board would have bought themselves some goodwill, and they would have bought themselves breathing space to go into this final seven days with a more optimistic aura around the club.
But instead of doing that, they fed the negative view. Instead of fixing it, they caused it to grow. Instead of working well and working quickly, they allowed people to think they were dragging their feet and didn’t care. They made a mess of the Adam Idah negotiation, no matter what others might say in their defence—they screwed that up.
And if we don’t bring in the boy from LA, the negative perception will expand again.
It will grow, and with every failure, it will become harder to change, especially if it results in a more widespread collapse in trust between the fanbase and the people running the club.
I think we are on the brink of that.
And all we’re doing is making it worse with every day that passes without signs of ambition. With every rumour we allow to grow about the sale of further key assets, and with our failure to provide real news stories of genuine deals done.
If you don’t feed the beast, it feeds on you.
We’ve allowed the silence to be filled with white noise; it’s our fault for allowing the silence in the first place. Instead of providing actual news, the media writes what it likes, and we’ve allowed toxic narratives to develop and spread.
This is our own damn fault. It’s not getting any better, and if this window ends in the kind of failure that looks likely, it will be so, so much worse.
James you give the Board too much ‘Goodwill’ in this piece.
PL & the nodding dummies care not for ‘perception’ or what the fans think.
That’s the least of their concerns.
It’s their M.O. all over, lack of communication on any issue, using ‘pet hacks’ to nudge or guage fan reaction.
They couldn’t care less as long as in their view Celtic is a well run PLC.
It’s a shockin way tae treat the support. This continual silence and not one, encouragin word about strengthenin the team. Only this, what is effectively a ‘ you’ll just have to wait and see’ attitude, towards the very support who show their massive loyalty by diggin deep every single season and deserve at the very least, some sort of assurance. What would be wrong with that ? It’s disgraceful arrogance.
And if Kyogo hadn’t injured his shoulder again,
would the Idah signing have actually been completed?
Hmmm… 🙁
Bean counters only know one thing – that’s numbers. My guess is £100 million in bank for a headline. So add what’s there just now plus what we get for O’Reilly transfer and subtract the 100 million from that. Then you will know what we will spend in what remains of a disastrous window.
Spot on again, James.
There is no way this Board is going to sanction the significant spend required. We’re talking here about people with no vision and no ambition let alone competence.
The midfield additions will consist of the cheap options (Sanches & McCowan) with a total spend of about £4.5M. The writing is on the wall. Anything else will be low-level development players on the cheap or on loan.
I said previously that I suspected the Board were leaking the stories about going after the big money additions, just so that they could say they tried, and that we’d later be fed the usual excuses (or lies depending on what way you want to look at it) for why it didn’t happen. I, for one (and certainly not alone), did not believe a word of it. I’d be delighted to eventually be proved wrong. Doubtful though.
The Board are currently putting all their energy into selling what little quality we have. Anything to increase the bonuses!
I learned long ago to expect absolutely nothing but disappointment from this Board. That way it will be a pleasant surprise when something unexpected happens……I’m still waiting!
You should also pay no mind to the happy clapping tonsil lickers. This most definitely is not how a transfer window works. This is how a Lawwell led transfer window works.
It really is unbelievable there are still people out there who think he’s nothing to do with it. We only need to look at the short period he wasn’t involved to see what a transfer window is supposed to look like. That’s evidence enough of his continued involvement.
It’ll soon be bonus time and the happy clappers will be able to write their stories about how great the balance sheet looks and how much money we have in the bank. There won’t be any mention of football mind!
We are now officially a retail, merchandising and marketing business that happens to play football matches.
Two loans on deadline day imo.Anything else is white noise.Same old same old.Soul destroying.
Do you not reaise that Celtic will pay the transfer fee,but it the wages players can command elsewhere is the problem.
Again. I totally disagree. I am not a board apologist. This is as much an attack on Bremdan as it is the board, anyway.
Brendan, again, has clearly stated that he wants quality. And pace / power. We could have zoomed off to the market a la last year or the huns this year and bought a load of “cheap” project punts. The reason big teams leave it until the last minute is because that’s how the market works. This is the reason Brighton have left it this late to shell out on MOR. They want to see if we’ll blink first. We played the same game with Norwich and Celtic obviously decided it couldn’t wait any longer because of the Kyogo injury. As such we paid what they wanted.
Now is not the time to judge the Summer transfer window. That will be done in the coming weeks and months.
James. I really enjoy your writing and podcasts. The last special I particularly enjoyed. Your soporific tones do have a habit of sending me to sleep but that’s nothing to do with the content, I can assure you. It just meant I had to listen in 2 chunks. And very enjoyable it was, too.
But this incessant doom and gloom re: our summer transfer activity is pre-emptive in the extreme. I really don’t get it. It’s a bit like watching The Usual Suspects and saying this film is so prefictable when only halfway through watching it.
PS. I do realise I am not as good as you as analogies.
So you’re hoping for a twist at the end.
Aren’t we all. Except for one thing; I’ve seen this movie before. And before. And before.
I advise you; prepare for the worst. Be mentally ready for it.
The support can hardly be blamed for showin a lack of faith, when so far this window’s followin the exact same pattern as the others we’ve become familiar with. Ah’ll just repeat. What would be the problem in lawwell or somebody up there, instead of BR, or board puppet kennedy, just comin out and givin the support some sort of assurance that there will be positive additions tae the team. By positive ah mean quality additions. Even that small gesture seems too much.
This transfer window is an epic failure….a failure of vision, a failure of ambition, a failure of leadership, a failure of competence, a failure of logic, and on, and on….
Sorry but we don’t need to wait until the window is closed to see what’s right in front of us.
The only thing lefr will be to release corro proving offers made for and rejected by clubs for players nothing else will dispell the perception now.
Usually by now strategic leaks are placed for incomings we need 5 and the airwaves are silent except for crap made up outgoing thats how i know this window is done dusted and a disaster for CL. Football.
Roll on the blame game and carpark protests. Arrive an hour early stay back 2 hours and protest non stop because there is no way in this hell that any corro proof showing genuine efforts to secure BR targets will see the light of day and yet whose club is it? Who puts in blood sweat n tears of daily graft? Who puts in actual money ? We do! You do jimmy, bob, annie, james, francie,jozie, wee davy stella , senga, you do !!! Its your club . TELL THEM BIG PETER D SENT YOU TO SEE THE BASTARDS. TAKE BACK WHATS OURS.
It is the wages players can get. Celtic can not and should not compete.
And what if anything has the manager said that could be construed as good news in regards to transfers ? It stinks James, but you won’t call it out as forcefully as you could. What’s holding you back ? You have the platform ,get stuck in.
Are you nuts? I have been “calling it out” on here for MONTHS.
Glad that it’s suddenly fashionable to do it, I don’t feel quite so on my lonesome now.
I certainly trust the board above the daily r2nger and that really is a stretch. However whether you always choose the negatives of the board, highlighted as a well run club, purely on the basis of transfer dealings then we’re pretty much all on the same page until the end of next week. I still have a wee tang of faith that we’ll get 1 or 2 players in over the next 7 days and until or if, as many of you keep blurting out with your emotional breakdowns, that time is up I’ll maintain an approach of respectful uncertainty and balanced emotions.
The club at BR’s behest has strengthened by reducing the number of project and unnecessary purchased players. He has enhanced the existing players performances and like it or not has made additions to the squad by adding permanent previously loaned players. They were never guaranteed Celtic players until those deals were secured. Clearly as it appears we are in discussions and looking at additions.
All that said if we don’t get that quality CB and LB as a minimum, of course it would good to strengthen in the middle and up front too, then I will alter my view to that of disrespectful certainty. Keep the faith, for now
A competent run club should have a progressive scouting team. A competent scouting team should have players identified for every position as we are a selling club and have been for several years. We are neither.