If ever we needed a perfect example of what the Celtic players have gone through in recent weeks it arrived in the first half against Dundee United on Saturday. One week after Wilfried Nancy blamed “individual errors” for the loss of three goals, Auston Trusty committed a classic of that particular genre.
As the last defender, Trusty tried to clear the ball away from the onrushing Owen Stirton, but the United striker got the better of him and was bearing down on Kasper Schmeichel, before Liam Scales flew in to block his shot. That’s what happens when an individual error takes place and you have a covering defender. The same chance under Nancy would inevitably led to an equaliser and an entirely different rest of the match.
One of my regrets from the defeat a week earlier was that Yang did not get the attention his excellent goal and performance merited. He has now drifted in from the right to open the scoring in two successive games. Right now he is our most effective winger.
The coolest head in Glasgow belonged to Benjamin Nygren. With the Unted keeper ready to block, Benjamin feigned to shoot, forcing the keeper to commit before pitching a shot high into the net. The Swede is by some distance the most prolific goalscorer at the club; something to ponder when we are without a confident striker.
*individual errors will, of course, still be costly on occasion.
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– CELTIC FC INNOVATES BY ASKING BLOGGERS TO FIND STRIKER –
In a bold and innovative strategy that redefines scouting for a modern football giant, Celtic FC have reportedly turned to the most esteemed of talent pools: the online commentariat.
With the club’s own recruitment department having apparently been locked in a year-long staring contest with an empty striker’s jersey, the task of identifying a viable forward has now been, with breathtaking humility, outsourced.
The club’s directive, funneled through favoured #cough fan channels, essentially constitutes a radical crowd-sourcing effort, inviting keyboard tacticians to sift through grainy YouTube compilations and Football Manager databases to solve a problem that has consumed a full calendar year and millions in professional salaries.
It’s a masterclass in delegation, proving that when your own processes fail spectacularly, the answer is always to ask strangers on the internet to do the job for free.
Truly, no top-tier club is more in touch with its support.
WorldClass.com
THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS GM on 12TH JANUARY 2026 12:45 PM
West Ham also bought Pablo from Gil Vente in Portugal for €23m which means they spent €52 replacing Fullkrug who went to Milan on loan with an option to buy for €14m
Lazio replaced Taty with Ratkov from Salzburg for €13m, 6’ 4” and 22. A friend who supports Lazio and is pretty calm normally described him as a cart horse
The Lazio manager, Sarri says he knows nothing about the player and that all the scouting is done by other people at the club. Not happy
The Lazio owner is much much more unpopular than ours and our board and has been for a very long time
dessybhoy- no offence to the boy,but him and Ralston should have been moved on a couple of years ago, and he’s been injured for about 3 seasons, and it will happen again.
Hey, no one asked me! Except maybe Burnley78 but I honestly just thought he was trolling.
dessybhoy:
Your point on the stupidest question on this thread (so far) is right on the nose.
The idea that the responsibility is on a group of people who post on a blog to know who is out there and who is not takes gaslighting to a whole new level.
The board apologists will stop at nothing to protect their pals.
The fact that one poster has already said Keiron Bowie and nobody is going to argue with it is telling. A Hibs striker with a total of nine goals to his name would walk into our team right now. Absolutely walk into it. And the guys on here are not the ones who are to blame for that shameful state of affairs.
the bada bing
Looks like he could do a job in a Martin & Co team
We made an effort to get Kyogo, though that was a loan to buy deal, fell through Friday
Would need to buy Bowie outright
if played alongside Donovan would give Bourne a chance to dust down some of his old puns
Which could be amusing…
News just in!
Blogger provides proof positive…..
That he does not understand how blogs er work….
Celtic40me: “Add the best we can, who want to come and for the next 4 months, not the next 3 weeks”.
Over the next 3 weeks we play Falkirk and Hertz in the league and Bolongna and Utrecht in the Europa.
A worst case scenario (not my base case) would see us 12 points behind Hertz and out of the Europa, so the next 3 weeks are crucial for our season.
I have no idea who to sign/loan, but necessity should now be the mother of invention. That’s why people are paid the big bucks.
SONSOFERIN
They are 🎣 for the world class recruitment team 👍
Bada
Yes he did seem to be injury prone with us, particularly his shoulder
BSR – It’s a good job I’ve built an extensive portfolio of powerful scouting and analytics tools over the years, Wikipedia, Transfermarkt, and Youtube.
THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS GM on 12TH JANUARY 2026 1:35 PM
I have no idea who to sign/loan, but necessity should now be the mother of invention. That’s why people are paid the big bucks.
You could say the same for the manager and players. The necessity is to win the league, let’s give ourselves the best chance with the best squad we can get for the rest of the season.
Signing someone now and missing out on better later is false economy. We need to hold our nerve, get the best we can.
And no more chasing unicorns.
CELTIC MAC
FI – just go for it “ Let’s dance “
SONSOFERIN on 12TH JANUARY 2026 1:42 PM
BSR – It’s a good job I’ve built an extensive portfolio of powerful scouting and analytics tools over the years, Wikipedia, Transfermarkt, and Youtube.
———-
Played 👏
When did P67 suggest Celtic ask internetters advice strikers?
Or Celtic suggest it themselves?
What am I missing?
Integrity.
Celtic40me@1.28 – I posted a quick AI search purely for information and context purposes only.
@1.43 – unfortunately we need new faces sooner rather than later. The season may well be over and done if we leave it to late January.
Seemed to me that on Saturday , we played the ball a lot quicker , at least 2 options available to the man in possession. This was far better than the doldrums latterly under Brendan.
Brendan’s tactics were to hold onto the ball at all costs and rely on some magic upfront , fair enough tactics , but when the forward quality drops , we run into trouble.
Take our second goal , a give and go from Arne to Kieran, Arne breaking into the box …. signs of MON
On Walsh at least he was consistent with Cornelius non red and our new blokes over zealous tackle.
HH
SAINT STIVS on 12TH JANUARY 2026 12:16 PM
120 backward passes on saturday.
92 percent pass accuracy.
ball retained, recycled, we go again probing for the next chance.
i think it is called winning football
same old martin, doing the same as Brendan but but ………….
no one will mention the horseshoe fitba now.
……………………….
You’re right there is an element of the horseshoe passing but players are taking fewer touches and we are seeing much more probing passes into the middle of the pitch he from defence than we ever did under Brendan. I also get the feeling that players have more licence to try shots from further out than trying to keep possession until we got inside the penalty area. Yang’s goal on Saturday was an example. We rarely saw players shooting from there under Brendan.
Bowie would get twice as many goal scoring opportunities playing for Celtic and has a bit of dig about him.
Above all else, he might be gettable if Hibs are prepared to sell and provide some kind of solution between now and summer.
Fee teams are willing to sell us a prize asset at this stage in the season – too many teams still have something to play for.
Any news on Callum Wilson?
Maybe that Adam Le Fondre guy is available? – I seem to recall that the sky was going to fall down if we didn’t sign him 12 years ago.
A) Celtic-linked centre-forwards (highest signal / most “Celtic could actually do this”)
Kyogo Furuhashi — Loan Directly in the Scottish gossip cycle: Celtic exploring a loan return from Birmingham City. This is the most “drop him in tomorrow” option because he already fits the club and league. BBC
Also repeated in FootballTransfers’ write-up of the situation. FootballTransfers
Callum Wilson — Short-term deal / Free agent-type opportunity BBC gossip notes Chris Sutton urging Celtic to take a “gamble” on Wilson as a short-term fix. For Celtic this is “win-now” depth rather than a resale asset. BBC
Mohamed Bamba — Loan with option to buy (fits your £2–6m framework) This one’s very much in the news cycle: Celtic reportedly opened talks with Lorient for an initial loan with an option to buy. That structure screams “Celtic business model” and sits nicely inside your budget. The Scotsman
Wessam Abou Ali — Transfer candidate Named as one of the strikers linked with a move to Celtic Park in recent weeks. If you want a striker who can be marketed as an “identified target” rather than a panic buy, he’s in that bracket. FootballTransfers
Evan Ferguson — Loan/complex deal (high ceiling, harder to land) Also explicitly mentioned as a linked striker in the same report cluster. He’s the “statement” option, but likely the hardest to execute financially and politically. FootballTransfers
B) Free agents (cheap fee, potentially expensive wages)
Transfermarkt maintains a live “free agents” pool — that’s your hunting ground for a Wilson-style deal, short-term experience, and “prove-it” contracts. Transfermarkt
C) Loans that are genuinely available (but not necessarily Celtic-linked)
Mathys Tel — Loan (reported open to it) The Guardian reports he’s open to a loan for more minutes. If Celtic can make the minutes + Europe pitch and get wage support, this is the kind of “high-upside loan” big clubs sometimes approve. The Guardian
por cierto
THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS GM on 12TH JANUARY 2026 1:50 PM
👍
I wasn’t correcting you, I was trying to add to your post
I was also trying to point out how difficult it is I these days of formations that all favour single strikers to find one and replace the successful ones. Taty isnt even that good but you’ve got West Ham buying two strikers for €52m and the teams theyve come from looking for replacements with money to spend and playing in a more attractive league.
The Prem Hoovers up mediocre players and sticks them in the reserves which means we have to be smarter than ever
Saint Stivs @ 12:58 – thanks
And again at 12:59pm for the BBC links.
Like you say, successful passes in final 3rd is the stand out.
Its a big difference. ~65% ?
One other piece of the jigsaw not provided by the BBC stats is the number of passes attempted in the final third.
I have an inkling we played it into the final 3rd quicker.
That (absent) stat would give us an indication of the extent to which we sacrificed accuracy for speed.
Paul Larkin on Kyogo
“We have already seen the fiasco of the Kyogo approach where, because of previous strained relations due to the Yang deal, the board decided to bypass Birmingham City and go direct to the player who initially assumed Birmingham had granted permission.
Once Birmingham City found out they pulled the plug immediately. This was after Celtic had already briefed the media on Kyogo’s imminent return.”
POR CIERTO on 12TH JANUARY 2026 1:57 PM
Wilson has gone to Bockum
Ferguson is staying at Roma
Spurs just sold Johnson and lost Kudus for the rest of the season who bith play in the same position as Tel
Who’s Paul Larkin? Is he another internetter?
celtic40me on 12th January 2026 2:06 pm
That’s Callum Marshall who has gone to Bocham. Ferguson has not, as yet, stated he is staying at Roma. If there is an early loan return penalty, then Celtic could pay it instead of Roma. Tel is available, but, looks like Villareal will make a bid, por cierto
Celtic40me: “ The Prem Hoovers up mediocre players and sticks them in the reserves which means we have to be smarter than ever”.
Yep, I get what you’re saying, but for the sake of a couple of loan deals until the end of the season I’m happy if they’re better than what we have.
“Anyone but Celtic” is Paul Larkin, por cierto
Sons of Erin
Always good to see you on these pages.
Keep the ol possible target info coming.
:-))
HH
Tel wants to leave to get more first team football to try and get into the French World Cup squad
I cant imagine Deschamp seeing the SPL as a proving ground
Spurs won’t let him leave, he started at the weekend , they lost another attacker to injury on Saturday
celtic40me on 12th January 2026 2:21 pm
Yes, point taken, but the remit was to come up with some names, :))), por cierto
The Tierney haters have been quiet the last couple of weeks.
Hmmm.
THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS GM on 12TH JANUARY 2026 2:15 PM
Me too, tough find though
Maolmuire O Muirgheasa on 12th January 2026 1:27 pm
Sums it up perfectly.
Our Board have ignored the fact we don’t have a centre forward.
The Recruitment setup have either identified players and the Board have ignored them, or refused to pay the asking price, or this month’s manager doesn’t want the players identified by the Recruitment team.
This state of disarray seems perfectly acceptable to sum on here who ask “Who would you buy ” while ignoring the fact that we are pouring a fortune into recruitment and scouting which appears no better than a hit and hope policy.
I disagree with many posters on here: we have a really good business Board, full of good business people, but unfortunately that does not make them good football people.
Football and sport in general, unlike any other business, has an emotional customer base. If that emotional attachment was removed Celtic would currently have crowds of under thirty thousand.
The customers, as our Board now view us, have run out of patience with how the business is being run.
Unlike other businesses, where customers would stop coming through the doors, the fans have paid up front to witness this ongoing farce and have a right to shout at those who have brought us to this point.
JUSTSHATERED on 12TH JANUARY 2026 2:28 PM
The Recruitment setup have either identified players and the Board have ignored them, or refused to pay the asking price, or this month’s manager doesn’t want the players identified by the Recruitment team.
We have examples of the recruitment set up identifying players, being prepared to pay the price and the manager wanting them. Ihaenacho last January and Dolberg in the Summer.
Thats two we know about, who knows how many other players we chased who didn’t want to come.
celtic40me on 12th January 2026 2:32 pm
But surely that is part of the process, asking about player via his agent if he does want to come?
There is no point wasting man hours of recruitment time scouting players if they aren’t interested.