WIJDEWORMER - Jahmai Simpson Pusey of Manchester City FC O19 during the UEFA Youth League match between AZ Alkmaar O19 and Manchester City O19 at the AZ training complex on April 2, 2025 in Wijdewormer, Netherlands. ANP | Hollandse Hoogte | GERRIT VAN KEULEN (Photo by ANP via Getty Images)
I have no idea whether or not Celtic’s new central defender is a good signing. I have no idea but I object to the transfer. Not because I’ve doubts about the player’s talent; I don’t know enough about the player to feel any way in particular.
I object to it because we should not be signing an academy player from another club on loan. It’s ridiculous. It’s small. It’s cheap. It makes us look like we’re willing to play the development role for someone else.
And yes, there’s a natural suspicion because he happens to be a City player — but I’d feel this way no matter which club he’d come from.
I felt this way last season when we signed a Barcelona reserve on loan for a year to play left-back, and I predicted then that he wouldn’t move Greg Taylor. That he wouldn’t have the quality to displace Greg Taylor from his starting slot.
I’ve no objection to the signing of Yamada. But he arrived at this club with even less fanfare than this guy has and I’ve looked at the online reaction to this signing, and it’s mostly people telling the board to F off and spend actual money. The Yamada reaction was pretty much the same. And I feel bad for both of the players, because the players have done nothing wrong.
The players deserve a chance. But this is, again, the rod the board has made for other people’s backs. This is, again, them being them.
Let’s all be honest here. If we’d gone out and signed a couple of players of quality — players to come into this first-team squad and fill some of the problem areas — and then we’d signed this guy, almost everyone would applaud it.
There would be no issues with it, except for the idea that developing other clubs’ players is not what we should be doing. But the vast majority of fans would be behind the deal. Even I would be less vocal in my anger than I am.
Had the Yamada deal come after we signed the kind of blue-chip signing Rodgers evidently wants up front, you’d have said: “Great, brilliant. We’ve signed a really, really good squad player here — the kind of guy who can make a real impact from the bench or, on those days when we give him a start, can prove over the next couple of years that he’s worthy of being the number one.”
He’s not going to get that chance now — because he was signed first. Because judgement’s already been passed. That the club’s going cheap.
The board doesn’t care how this reflects on the players they sign. The board doesn’t care how it reflects on the manager. The board doesn’t care about any of that.
The board only cares about itself. It is certainly not in the interest of Celtic as a club for them to behave this way. It’s undermining. It’s stupid.
We have games coming up right now for which we needed players bedded in. We have an away game at Pittodrie. We have an away game at Ibrox.
We have two Champions League matches, structured around those fixtures, and we should have had top players in this team — already bedded into the side — before those games. We don’t. And we won’t. And it’s probably too late now. Anyone we sign now gets thrown in at the deep end. And I think that’s grossly, spectacularly unfair. And it’s down only to the people who run our club. No one else is to blame for it.
I’m not happy about this signing. I can’t pretend that I am. I can’t pretend that I derive any satisfaction from reading today that we’ve completed our latest signing of the window. A grand total of £3.7 million has been spent by this club in a transfer period where we’ve taken in £17 million from the sale of Nicolas Kuhn, £3 million from other player sales, and received a £5 million bonus from the sale of Jeremie Frimpong on top of it.
It is nowhere near good enough. And a reserve player for Manchester City will not be what convinces people. All the board has done today is take the shine off what might even have been a good day. All they’ve done is highlight how backward and amateurish they are. They couldn’t even get this deal done in time to unveil him at the weekend. And the thing is — a lot of people didn’t expect anything different.
Earlier today, I highlighted how people have tried to drag Ange into this, by setting up some phoney-baloney comparison of how “calm” he was in relation to Rodgers. All they’ve done, in fact, is force me to highlight how little they actually know — how little they remember — or how little they think the rest of us know and remember.
One pro-board website today said that there will be “no excuses” for us not going through in the Champions League. What he means, of course, is that there will be no excuses for Rodgers. But that too is errant rubbish.
It’s not Rodgers who screwed this window up. Rodgers has highlighted the concerns he has about our readiness. And although I believe that Rodgers will back himself to succeed, he is being asked to fight with one hand tied behind his back.
So if it all goes wrong, I know who I’ll blame. And it won’t be him.
Welcome to the club, Jahmai Simpson-Pusey.
I cannot pretend to be pleased that you are signing for us, but I wish you well just the same — as I wish well every player who signs. If the response to the signing is a little less enthusiastic than you probably hoped, or maybe even believed, then you have to forgive the supporters for this — because we’re a little bit cheesed off at the moment. A little bit peeved. And that’s got nothing to do with you.
So come in and impress the hell out of all of us.
You’ll never find better fans to play in front of. If you do.
I’ve said this beside, this board will follow the same format as in previous years and drip feed gems, loans and cheap projects until we find out if we have qualified for the Champions League.
It’s another classic cart before the horse season. This board is about as far removed from having an interest in football as is possible. As a fan and shareholders with no say on how to get rid of them is incredibly frustrating.
I could totally understand us waiting to see if we qualified for the Champions League if we didn’t have much cash to spend. But when we’re sitting on a pile of cash, it makes no sense at all!
For Fucks sake – A £21.3million surplus of cash in this fuckin window alone…
Sevco have probably lost damn near that amount on acquisition of players as well…
Therin doth lie the difference in our ‘custodians’ to their lot…
Fuckin tragic so it bloody well is !
James you’re away over the top here, by all means criticise the board but undermining players who are just in the door, is not on.
I think you’ve made your point, You, like a lot of supporters are scunnered with the board and lack of spending.
Let’s settle down and support the players at the club, whilst still hoping for signings over the next 4 weeks.
‘..One pro-board website today said that there will be “no excuses” for us not going through in the Champions League. What he means, of course, is that there will be no excuses for Rodgers. But that too is errant rubbish..’
The twat who wrote that shite is a comical ali joke figure that has no backbone, like when he campaigned for years over resolution 12 then suddenly done done a 180 degree turnaround overnight on the issue because his master got him to drop it.
The board is there to help Desmond make money, they’re not bothered about the manager or the team and have little interest in improving the stadium.
James – quite possibly the worst article I have read on this blog. Teams across Europe are taking players on loan from other clubs – it might leave a sour taste but it happened at all levels. Do I think we have enough to get through CL qualifying if the game was tomorrow- well we should have, as I would expect the players on our books to take care of either teams. Surely you would back Idah to help us plot a safe course?
We need more to be competitive if/when we get through. But on all realistic measures if we can’t overcome either of the teams who we might face, then serious questions need to be asked of our coaching and performance teams.
The anger, frustration and consternation levels amongst fans are as high as I’ve seen in many a pre season.
I’ve commented many times on the tardiness our board display during most transfer windows.
However, in this window tardiness seems to be getting mixed with severe reluctance.
A reluctance to go out and buy the quality that our manager, squad and fans are craving.
A reluctance to do this and give our club the maximum chance of surmounting this tough, upcoming CL qualifier!
An apparent reluctance to back our manager’s ambition to keep progressing our team, rather than just “maintaining it!”
Like countless others, I just can’t understand this window and why we do not have at least 2 other quality signings in, especially in the wide areas.
Like others have already commented, it wouldn’t be fanciful to assume that our board are waiting on the outcome of our CL qualifier, before they make any further moves of note, in the transfer market.
It’s also fair to assume that if we did calamitously exit the CL, our board would probably sell Maeda to recoup any potential revenue loss.
I acknowledge that I’ve used the word assume, a few times in my post and others can draw their own conclusions with that.
Nevertheless, at this moment, in a very unremarkable transfer window for our club thus far, it is very difficult to feel anything less than completely frustrated with our board’s inertia and apparent lack of ambition.
Only time will tell whether they have, once again, completely
fallen asleep at the wheel, and are about to have a head on collision!
If they do, let us hope that they can provide some answers for their actions.
Communicating with the fans is not a strong point of our club, and it would be naive to believe that this may change, anytime soon ! HH
Correct,we should be signing development players on the back of players for first 11 or even 15,these players are now expected to be first team CL, SPFL READY.
The board are playing a very dangerous game when even the manager is stating the development and maintenence facts.
If we fail to qualify for the CL and then get beaten by Sevco,batten the hatches and IT’S ON THE BOARD,NOBODY ELSE,?WELL WHO KNOWS WHAT MR TISDALE IS DOING ???
Agree with all the stuff about the board. But it’s a bit hypocritical expecting us to send our fringe players out on loan to other clubs, then throw a tantrum when a team loans one out to us.