There should be lessons for Celtic from what happened to three forwards who started last month playing in Belgium. Anderlecht’s Kasper Dolberg seemed to be on the hook for a move to Celtic, but he was a player in demand. That has consequences.
Kasper and his agent knew that players in demand often receive bids late in the window. Why would they move before everyone has shown their hand? While Celtic tried to get the deal over the line, Ajax moved in with an offer. The player had a choice and chose to go back to the Netherlands. This is not an exception, players will often make choices like this rather than come to Scotland.
Michel-Ange Balikwisha had a good season at Royal Antwerp. With a deal to Celtic in the offing, Balikwisha’s agent had a duty to offer him everywhere north of Scottish football in the food chain. We can assume that Michel-Ange had little prospect of a bite, so signed with Celtic.
The lesson: try to recruit top players with years’ experience in highly scouted leagues and you will often fail. If they have offers from better leagues, they will go there rather than come to Scotland.
A year after Genk paid Celtic £2.4m for Hyeon-gyu Oh, he was subject to a €28m bid from Stuttgart. Reports on why the deal fell through are vague: a medical issue was reported, promoting Stuttgart to reduce their offer to €20m, which Genk declined.
There are so many lessons from Hyeon-gyu Oh’s year in Belgium it is painful to go over them. We had a player in the building who did not get the development support at Celtic which was available to him at Genk. Adam Idah was the recipient of that help, which resulted his sale on Monday for a £2m loss. You can get recruitment perfect, but if you don’t get development right, you are wasting your time.
If we want a striker who Stuttgart are prepared to pay around €20m for, we will not find them in Belgium. Recruitment is difficult, requires proper resourcing and absolutely cannot be done well working the agent circuit.
Scottish football is about to get a lesson on how it’s done by Tony Bloom’s Hearts. If we persist in trying to sign top strikers from Anderlecht, they will soon overtake us.
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What chance a lessons from Holland article tomorrow?
What would make this shambles of a transfer window even more shambolic, would be a collective failure to learn from and improve on it
Disappointed that nothing at all from the decision makers thus far.
I fear we will learn nothing, repeat the same mistakes in January then replace the manager in the summer.
Time for strong leadership. Actually, it’s time for any kind of leadership.
AD- We got £8 million for Johnston and Lawal last year, 2 reserve players,and we are offering £1.5 million for established players in better leagues than ours,totally embarrassing
The only thing wrong with the club is that Rodgers is a one trick pony who has been found out.
NO amount of sussed out, low blocked, double marked, Khun faced wingers will change that fact.
Playing every game with one striker, and giving him zero service, is an egomaniac using Celtic to project a “LOOK AT ME, AH PLAY LIKE PEP, AND I WIN EVERYTHING.”
[cause there is zero opposition shhhhh you’ll waken up the Timmy sheep]
The Battered Bunnet on 4th September 2025 4:18 pm
“I see Celtic has settled the group action by 24 then kids who were sexually abused at the boys club in the 70s/80s/90s.
Good. It’s been too long disputed.
There are a further 9 individual cases still live. Hopefully these will be settled asap too.
Should have happened years ago.
I hope the men affected get some sort of peace in all of it.”
………
But…..I thought wee hero Fergus put all of this to bed before he left in 1999?????
I’m curious as to how people arrive at whether a player is a left or right winger, or possibly what is a winger.
I always imagine a right winger as a right footed player who gets to the bye line or advanced position and normally putting the ball into the box with his preferred foot most of the time,
Similarly, a left winger would get down the wing and generally cross with his left foot.
However we seem to use left footed players as right wingers and vice versa, which seems to me to make it more likely that the wingers cut inside and pass the ball sideways or through the pack of defenders rather than head down the wing.
Nygren plays on the right and rarely touches the ball with his right and the left winger ion Sunday rarely played the ball with his left foot and didn’t try to go past Tavpen on the outside all afternoon.
I’m probably stuck in the era of jinky etc , but I can’t really see our wide players operating as wingers in the traditional sense as they don’t seem to provide much in the way of chances for our centre fotward.
Confused CSC
vinniethedog on 4th September 2025 1:08 pm
Burnley 78….the only person I see bitter on this blog regularly is you.
——
Respectfully, VTD if you truly believe that?
… your eyes are failing you.
79caps on 4th September 2025 12:31 pm
Brugge (Bruges) has a population of about 120,000 and the club has a local rival in Cercle Bruges. Their budget is about 40 million Euros less than Celtic’s.
—–
79caps – can you share the source of that info?
Not a challenge, rather an education.
I recently saw 23/24 turnover data for FC Bruges which easily put them 30% above us for the same period (They also outdid Ajax).
From memory they didn’t make eye watering profits – so am struggling to understand the comparative budget.
Cheers.
.
Fritzsong @ 3:31 pm,
The notion that Celtic’s commercial operations are in the hands of cretins doesn’t hold water. A very healthy bank balance runs very much counter to that argument. That doesn’t alter the fact that Celtic’s most recent activity in the transfer market has been hugely disappointing. The team requires freshening. Most of our key players were either inherited by Ange or brought to the club by him. That was four years ago.
The recent failure, and it is a failure, was not an act of God beyond human control. Someone or some people fouled up. It’s pointless now to conduct a witch-hunt to identify the guilty party or parties. But we need assurance that there will be no repeat of our 2025 shambles.
Glenowen @ 5:05 pm
“What would make this shambles of a transfer window even more shambolic, would be a collective failure to learn from and improve on it
Disappointed that nothing at all from the decision makers thus far.
I fear we will learn nothing, repeat the same mistakes in January then replace the manager in the summer.
Time for strong leadership. Actually, it’s time for any kind of leadership.
Yes, yet it is a perennial issue, this is what Brendan Rodgers said in the last week of the window….
“Q: Celtic trying to do business so late in the window. Why do you think that culture is so hard to change?
Brendan Rodgers: “There are so many reasons as to why transfers don’t get done and don’t get done in time. I just know that as a football manager and coach, you bring in a player in the 1st of July as well as you can. You’ve maybe scouted him and looked at him and done a lot of the work. You bring him in 1st of July. He’s got time to adapt, not just to football life, but his family moving out of hotels, getting into apartments, houses, whatever else. And then when you get to your games, like your competitive games, the games that matter. They’re settled then and ready.
“The example of the young guy at Brugge there during the week, you know, 6 million pound winger. He’s signed. He comes in and does his work and makes a difference. So, for us as a football club, it’s not about investment either, because this club will invest. The club’s super well run. The investment is there. We need to look at the timing of the investment. And does that go back to recruitment? Does it go back to identification?
“All these different facets, but what I do know is we have to be better at it. So, it’s not about investment. The club will invest. We’ll see over the next few days. I’m pretty sure we’ll invest. But we want to get the timing of investment important, just to give us every single chance to be the best version of Celtic that we can be.”
This is what he said in the last week of the previous summer window.
“BR said: “There are a number of things I won’t go into here. But it’s definitely something, having come back in and gone through three windows now, we have to put right as a football club.
“We shouldn’t have been getting into this last week in the position we’re in. That’s the reality. However, that’s something for us for after this window.
“As I said, we’ll get the players in that we want. We don’t need to manufacture our own stress when there’s no need.
“It’s a very important week for us. In terms of the context of next week [Rangers game], we’re in a really, really good place. But over the context of the season, it’s really important for us.
“We want to develop, we want to improve. We can’t be happy just to make our money and build our pot because the bottom line is on the pitch. That’s the bottom line.”
So the issues have been known about and surely have been discussed, yet these “shambles” carry on.
It is agreed on a commercial basis that the Club is run well, so we must assume that the football recruitment is a shambles because the Board simply don’t care enough and are not ambitious enough for the football team.
Hail Hail
You’d be doing well to name the first 11 for killie celtic on the Sunday.
I think a strong third team is good for everyone – pity it’s the mini lennie assaulting hun Bs.
Fassreifen on 4th September 2025 3:06 pm
Interesting that there’s (as yet) no Iheanacho interview with Gerry, not even a new photograph. Is his physical shape as bad as Middlesborough fans have warned us?
——-
I’d heard he’d just been to the dentist and his mouth was sore, and that he is camera shy.
I believe our fans will love what he brings.
I am sure he will make a big contribution to the team.
CHAIRBHOY on 4TH SEPTEMBER 2025 4:
If we didn’t have the spaces for it why was he talking about players going out on loan if they weren’t ready for the first team then?
And to talk about it, then use the last spot for Welsh suggests something. Either poor planning or something else.
I don’t think he’s interested in it, perhaps not surprising given his short time horizon, but don’t bullshit us with talk of development plans and pathways.
Hail
KINGLUBO on 4th September 2025 2:53 pm
Cannot understand why a Reserve Lrague is not brought in. In my day, if Celtic were far away we’d go and watch the reserves, some great football too. On top of that, emerging talent were on show.
During the life of the Lisbon Lions, we’d go to see the likes of Danny McGrain, Kenny D, Lou Macari and David Hay, and hey, the “done good ” did they not.
*allegedly 2 reasons, we were going for a wee team NIAR plus steptoe felt it was too expensive too run so they opted out and the lemmings follow followed them
A private school education makes a wee man an arrogant prick. Shock horror.
Has anyone ever seen weee kev and B78 in the same room? We should be told.
Celtic40me @ 5:40 pm,
There was nothing wrong with the planning.
Stephen Welsh gets sold to Plymouth Argyle
Marcelo Saracchi comes to Celtic on loan
Inamura goes out on loan
That was the “probable” plan
The Stephen Welsh transfer falls through.
The Board piddle about with the Marcelo Saracchi deal.
And the plans change
You make out Brendan Rodgers to be a liar as that’s your agenda.
While the Manager is trying his best to communicate with the supporters.
Hail Hail
The statement from fan groups looks to have attracted some very significant support.
If the plan was to keep the head down over the break then Nicholson will have to think again.
Glenowen on 4th September 2025 1:21 pm
In my mind, recruitment should be based on a need, a requirement…….and an aspiration to attempt to make the team as strong as you possibly can.
Hope you don’t mind me adding a little to your opening sentence.
HH
Nothing is guaranteed but all i hope for is that the people who’s responsibility it is attempt it, putting whatever politics/grudges they have aside to make our team as good as it can be.
CHAIRBHOY on 4TH SEPTEMBER 2025 5:50 PM
“You look at the likes of Callum Osmand. He’s a young, talented player, so is he ready now or does he need a loan? You don’t know that until you assess that. He’s still our signing.“
One loan spot for Osmand and Inamura, not to mention Shin. And it eventually went to someone who doesn’t need developing.
Either a very poorly thought through plan or bullshit.
Saint Stivs earlier …
Previous NCC banners raised a chuckle.
I seem to recall a phrase that goes something like
“You’ll catch more bees with honey than with vinegar”
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Sionnaigh on 4th September 2025 4:44 am
Celtic supporters that swallow the MSM merde unite in crap. The rest of us are enjoying the most successful period of domestic dominance Celtic FC has ever enjoyed in Scotland.
Having a healthy bank balance in the black should ensure a successful longevity. Celtic ain’t just for Christmas. Ave Ave
*as meat loaf once said “you took the words right out of my mouth”, as we are all a bit frustrated right now over our dealings in the transfer market, but there has to be more than meets the eye here and as for the “sack the board” raphael, too may stuck in a time warp of 19994 when we rightly demanded change to an out dated board which incidentally 1 of the main players there was a CA, the late Sir Bob had been one tae but that’s the way our founding fathers, had intended, Brothers Walfrid and Dorotheus deliberately chose prominent businessmen in the East End of Glasgow like John Glass, Dr. Conway, Joe Shaughnessy, John McLaughlin and Stephen Henry to assist them in founding a charitable organisation which has grown to the club we ALL love, well that is the smsm, certain social media culprits who troll our sites trying to cause disruption notwithstanding.
When the old board was found lacking a wee expat fae Croy took over, another accountant btw, and set about reruiting prominent Celtic minded businessmen such as DD, Brian Quin, Sir Patrick Sheehy, none of them accountants, etc to NOT only save OUR club but put it in the position of winning 17 of the last 20 League titles, only the deid team twice and sevco once have interrupted this.
It was NOT always been plain sailing, just when we thought we had secured Gerard Houlier he opted out for Liverpool but that was a sentimental choice due to Liverpool Uni being one of his alma maters, so we had to grab Dr Jo, who at least brought us Lubo and big Johann as well as the 5-1 game, then there was Eddie Howe who the smsm did a number on NOT just him but his back up staff so we got lucky once more when we got Ange, although IMHO his stye was waning a bit after his second year but he did show at White Hart Lane that he knew how to change his tactics when winning only their second European trophy in their history.
Now most of what I wrote is common knowledge. so I also take it Ange let board know that he was for the joe the toff and they set about finding a suitable replacement, this is when DD took over, now he has it on record that no one and I mean no one gets a contact at parkheid unless he ok’s it and that’s when he personally set out to snare the last person any Celtic supporter wanted after his January shenanigans of a couple of years before, he was persona non grata as far as the support where concerned and frankly still is with some of them especially the Green Brigade.
This time though instead of the traditional 1 year rolling contract he offered him a 3 year one as it would take that long to build up a decent European side again, plus allegedly he was offered a sweet heart deal which included paying the Foxes the balance of his gardening contact which they in turn would give him, he didnae come cheap.
Well as we all know the first 2 years were heaven except for a wee blimp in the SC Final, or was it, it now seems as for us as it was the old Jimmy Ruffin song in “I’ve passed this way before” as he wanted out or so it seems and his managerial record confirms that he is a 2 year coach as he tends to burn out at the end of it, so he tells DD that he will be leaving at the end of his contract, now the big billionaire then tells him no more funny money then and you will only get the players you need to retain your 2 trophies an possibly ad a 3rd, the SC.
Anyway that’s my take on it for what its worth
Thank you to whoever posted the Euro squad earlier.
Shame for Shin (who, so far, i quite like) but if it is a toss up with Johnny for the last slot it’s a no brainer.
Kenny has a very decent scoring record in European football already.
Shin will just need to knuckle down, work hard, learn a trick or two from Daizen and Kelechi, and carry some of the domestic load up front.
Quicker he gets a goal, the better.
Daniel Levy steps down from Spurs
DD NEXT!
celtic40me on 4th September 2025 6:17 pm
Daniel Levy steps down from Spurs DD NEXT!
*well as Mrs TT’s auntie used tae say “be careful for what you wish for”
Celtic40me @ 6:05 pm,
So let’s get this straight…
We had Balikwisha, Saracchi and Tounekti all lined up before the UCL playoffs.
We were selling Idah and Yang.
We needed the wingers and a striker in (Dolberg?) before they went.
The manager wanted these deals done before the playoffs…
They Board screwed up the Dolberg and Yang deals and ended up delaying and paying just as much, if not more for the players we were haggling over.
Yet our Manager is a liar because sending Inamura and Osmand out on loan wasn’t priority.
Unbelievable.
Hail Hail
https://www.facebook.com/100090371386177/videos/774300981804710/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v
CHAIRBHOY on 4TH SEPTEMBER 2025 6:25 PM
We’re all guilty of the occasional bit of bullshit if it serves our purpose ;). Doesnt make us liars though
All part of the game 👍
Back to Basics – Glass Half Full @ 6:15 pm,
Yes, well said…
Some are cynical but for me if Shin turns out to be a goal scorer, with his physicality, agression and pace, he could be a real Diamond.
As it stands, our hopes are on Kelechi and Johnny…
Hail Hail
Hail Hail
“We’re all guilty of the occasional bit of bullshit if it serves our purpose ;). Doesnt make us liars though.”
Yeah, that’s actually pretty close to the broadly accepted definition of a liar.
Nicholson is a patsy,Lawwell is back,don’t believe the propaganda on here,he is the last guy on earth ,who would sit back go to the odd Board meeting, and ask who was for tea or coffee. His ego can’t handle it.Desmond is who we need to rid ourselves of intimately, but nobody can see that happening, he’s too interested in playing golf with Rory.
James Forrest @ 6:56 pm,
Unfortunately where I was brought up and still live, this economical with the truth crap is the norm…
Ethical behaviour out the window.
I get it, you have to be a bit street wise and on your toes.
But…
It is abhorrent for me to see it in those who run my Club and some so called supporters.
Hail Hail
Evening all.
It takes a bigger man to admit he was wrong.
Well, that what Mrs BB has said to me.😉
Can’t see it happening though, sad really.
With Daniel Levy stepping down I hope they’re not thinking of taking Michael away.
!!BADA BING!! on 4TH SEPTEMBER 2025 7:16 PM
We need a CEO with the balls to tell the chairman to gtf.
CHAIRBHOY on 4TH SEPTEMBER 2025 6:25 PM
Celtic40me @ 6:05 pm,
Need to check the timeline but I’m sure Dolberg only became an option when Anderlecht got gubbed by AEK on 28 Aug , last Thursday.
So no impact on Kazakh shitshow and almost certainly never a long term target.
Just checking Tv
Mmmmm
just checking.cfc
Back to Basics -Glass Half Full @ 5.25 p.m.
Sorry, I can no longer find the figures I gave for respective budgets, but this website (in French) gives Brugge’s budget as close to 130 million Euros (112 million pounds) and a wage bill of 50 million Euros (43 million pounds) How does this compare with Celtic?
https://www.eurosport.fr/football/ligue-des-champions/2021-2022/ligue-des-champions-le-club-bruges-geant-en-belgique-qui-veut-se-faire-une-place-en-europe_sto8540857/story.shtml
Celtic’s turnover (revenue) in the year ended June 2024 was 124 million pounds
Brugge’s turnover was 165 million euros for the same period = 143 million pounds
Source:
https://rocketfan.com/brand/BRU
So their turnover was greater than ours – no doubt due to CL money.
What is the latest figure for Celtic? Higher I assume following the last CL campaign.
Brugge’s stadium has a capacity of 29,000 (but they are building a new stadium) and their average home attendance is around 20,000. Our advantage here is obviously outweighed by other factors.
This gives details of Brugge’s squad and shows that before this season began they spent less on transfers than they received for departing players.
https://www.transfermarkt.com/club-brugge-kv/startseite/verein/2282
The transfermarkt. com website shows the value of club squads in Europe: Brugge in 68th position, Celtic in 86th position.