Like buses, nothing happens on the Celtic transfer front for ages, then they all come along at once. Mika Baur became the fourth new addition to the squad yesterday, when he joined from Paderborn, where he spent last season as a key part of their successful promotion to the Bundesliga.
He turned 22 last month and spent four seasons in the German third tier, largely as an attacking midfielder. Paderborn then gave him his break and he starred as a central midfielder last term. I expect Martin will give him a try in both roles, although I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he could drop back again, and deputise for Callum McGregor on occasion.
I like this profile. Young, with development potential. If we discount his time in the German third tier, most of which he played with Freiburg reserves, he has played around 40 games, which is lower than our usual sample before spending millions on a player. Our sweet spot tends to be between 60 and 80 games, below this is too few for proper research, above this and genuine potential is on too many radars. For Mika, it was move now or lose him.
You know the rules. He is another young player who we all need to play our part in successfully developing. It is not the young players you have, it is what you do with the young players you have, that’s important. Welcome to Celtic, Mika.
Congratulations to all four Scottish clubs who reached the Conference League playoff round last night. It must be many years since four Scottish clubs played crucial European games on the same night without defeat. I am delighted for each of them and wish them well in the tournament.
In May, we were all delighted to beat Dunfermline to win the Scottish Cup, but the entire Celtic family were still buzzing from the events of a week earlier. Nothing could have shifted the joy that day.
Perhaps happier than Celtic fans at the result, were Newco investors. Celtic pocketed around £1.5m for winning the Cup. The result meant Newco were elevated to the Europa League qualifiers, a tournament with expected earnings around €10m more than the Conference League. That’s money the Scottish game can ill-afford to lose, albeit the consequences are concentrated around one acre of Govan.
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FRIDAY!
One sleep to match day.
HH!
A wee song for Yerhun Flop…
For those who feel they’ve been mistreated
Discriminated, robbed or cheated
To claim one victory inspired
To win just once is their desire
To win just once
To win just once
To win just once
That would be enough
Sorry Engels not around for the play off next week, But if it is £22 million rising to 25, that will pay for three of our signings, Maeda’s fee should cover the 4th. Pretty good shape with a lot of players off the wage bill. A tough midfielder, full back cover and goalie cover – loans ok for these – and we should be fine. Game time for Osmand, Kenny, Hatton and one or two others please, if possible.
Oooft Paul 67! As Archie McPherson might have said.
Killian Phillips will hopefully enjoy his Hun nothing burger on Sunday.
Four signings aged 25, 24, 24, & 22.
Good.
25 l-year old has a well documented pedigree.
Two 24-year olds have shown a pinch of pedigree at the 2 top tables
(Champions League, World Cup)
Mika is a punt.
(A punt I welcome wholeheartedly but a punt nonetheless )
Similar to Kuhn and O’Riley … time & patience needed.
Overall – feels like a blended recruitment approach.
Anyone notice at the start of the second half when the Polish team went into their huddle, immediately the hoardes started booing ( they see a huddle as a Celtic thing…and anyway, booing is second nature to them these days), however, what got me was the wee bearded loser (losing is second nature to him too), he was straight away out of his dugout, arms raised to the heavens protesting. I don’t think I have despised a hun manager as much as I despise him, though Gerard comes dead-heat close…
“the consequences are concentrated around one acre of Govan.”
—————————–
Assuming no other clubs measure themselves against the one in Govan, or think they need to have a “rivalry” with them. But nobody would be that short-sighted or unambitious…….
Welcome To Celtic Mika…
Yes, Mika Baur seems a good “moneyball” addition to the first team group.
Good age, lots of potential…
Many of us were dismayed that the obviously flawed, cheap, under-scouted, underachieving “moneyball” model of the last dozen years was still being used last summer.
How many failures? Well I stopped counting at 100 players.
How many failed UCL qualifiers.!?
How much money down the drain – literally hundreds of millions…
Not to mention the time wasted by managers, coaches, other football, recruitment and admin staff…
If has been the most surreal idiotic “model”
Still, we now seem to be getting in a good mix of quality players…
He is a moneyball signing the Board were prepared to spend reasonable money on, that they fully briefed the manager on and asked for his opinion – so high hopes for the lad….
In Martin we trust….
Hail Hail
Weebobbycollins on 14th August 2026 12:11 pm
#
I think the Hun board will realise that they made a mistake letting Batty Ferguson go without seeing him being backed with his own players first.
There were nudges on BBC Sportsound last night about how organised and well drilled Dundee are under Stephen Pressley.
So who knows what the hidden hands will conjure up.
Roon thum!
On the old R2ngers debacle …
… I’m still giggling like a silly schoolboy over “No Surrender etc” last night.
Priceless.
Conference League participation is my overwhelming preference.
Plenty on here will recall Artmedia.
Catastrophic outcome with a silver lining.
The calendar was cleared of European commitments.
The group, including quite a few new players, spent countless hours on the training pitch with a renewed focus … and came together.
That outfit (or, more accurately, their toadies in the SMSM) can find momentum from miniscule circumstances.
Deny them momentum.
Conference league participation offers
– Busier calendar including travel. No training time.
– lower prize money (difference from EL overall isn’t huge BTW)
– Thursday nights against teams many fans don’t know … with most of Europe totally disinterested. CL is the Lord Mayor’s show Tue/Wed. Any lingering interest on a Thursday turns to EL.
Sunday league games by default
Limited enthusiasm and ticket sales.
All of which perpetuate the pall hanging over the joint as the dark, cold nights arrive.
And .. they are more likely to pick up coefficient points.
Who is Batty Ferguson?
Barry lol.
WBC – aye, I noticed that as well.
He’s absolutely desperate to ingratiate himself with the klanbase.
If do lose Engels in the next day or two – we need a replacement and I don’t see Baur as being that. He’s a development player, nowhere near the experience Engels had when he signed.
If we go into a play off with McCowan or Chamberlain starting then we’ll be asking for trouble.
Greg Taylor for the Huns?
Why were the Huns shouting ” Høgh” at the end of the game last night ?
Good luck Arne,5 year deal at West Ham, always seemed a good type around the place and popular guy among the squad, would rather have waited till after qualifiers though…….Ausburg have 10% sell on
For McInnes to be in this position after 4 games is extraordinary.
Hopefully he makes it to October before the annual management cull at Ibrox.
Conference League puts them on a Thursday / Sunday schedule for 6 games , which is only a benefit to us if we get past LASK.
Offset against not qualifying, reduced income , terrible impact on team morale , less games for Deek to experiment with tactics.
The free time non qualifying provides is only any good if you make good use of that time. I suspect more time on the training pitch will just confuse the Hun players.
As Deek post match jabbering revealed he cannot manage a team expected to win …..
HH
Wee Naisy?
https://videocelts.com/2026/08/blogs/latest-news/steven-naismith-gives-two-reasons-why-the-spfl-title-is-going-to-ibrox/
I like Killian Phillips NO. 88 :) for St. Mirren. I think he could do a number of jobs for us, surely not a lot of dosh either. por ceirto
What becomes of the brogue-en hearted?
The Bada Bing @ 12:29 pm,
Yes, good luck to the bhoy, did great for us, still lots of potential, yet think he really grew at Celtic in several ways.
That has got to be a plus for any other quality talented youngsters like Mika, who want that all important next step up…
It was shamefull the way the groupies on here put the lad down and that “campaign” came from a faction from within the Celtic PLC Board is a stain on our great club – not their only stain, not their biggest stain but a shamefull stain right enough.
Hail Hail
“Like buses, nothing happens on the Celtic transfer front for ages, then they all come along at once”.
Who knew?
https://imgflip.com/i/ayu0eo
Genuinely find myself struggling as the whether I want them out of Europe or getting a wee Conference League place.
I really always hate them winning anything. Any momentum giving wins vs Red Imps etc will be celebrated like something big by media. Any energy will help them. Likewise decent cheap coefficient points help them to be seeded on future.
The other side is if they are Thursday Sunday for 6 games is a help for us as is the extra 6 fixtures potentially more scope for injuries etc.
The Artmedia season definitely showed the benefit of focus. I was at both of these games and for me it helped WGS enormously in seeing who he could rely on.
Of course back then Chairboy was beginning his 21 years of hurt and telling us how badly we were being run. Of course despite an over heating cheating we have won 17/21 titles and 40 trophies since then suggests maybe the path the club took has been a pretty successful one.
On balance I think I will be cheering for a Czech win next Thursday.
Thanks Arne and good luck.
Shame the manager didn’t show enough faith in you a year ago in our biggest match of the season.
Maybe too busy scoring points. Who knows ?
Focus now on tomorrow for us.
And the final pieces of our own jigsaw.
We have brother McLean and several Ross’s to deal with tomorrow at Dundee United.
Matchday 3 eve,
Four ‘quality’ signed players now confirmed with hopefully 3 more to come GK, LB, CM ( Gvidas Gineitis of Torino hopefully)
Hardly world class by any means, but approaching adequacy will suffice given the supporters money, the club rakes in and
sits on.
Well done to everyone concerned, it turns out that we can “deal with agents “ and “ quality players will come to Celtic “ after all, – wasn’t that hard was it? Special mention to the 53,000 and the waiting listers for hanging on in there, renewing again for the arrival of the new hope, new pie, and more yellow paint.
🇨🇮🇨🇮🇨🇮🇨🇮🇨🇮 CSC
A
A smart signing.
As the market changes and clubs in bigger leagues get wise to the benefits of signing the sort of players that have done so well for us in the past, and the use of data becomes more widespread and cheaper we’re going to have work a bit harder for these sort of signings. Further upstream in their development path, with a clearer pathway to the EPL or a bigger league.
Mika Baur’s comment about his agent and Nico Kuhn are important – we need to ensure that we maintain relationships with agents who have a plan for their players.
We also need to be completely honest with ourselves about our place in the food chain. If things work for Mika he’s not hanging about until til he’s at his peak- it will be the same time frame as Kuhn or Matt. If it’s true about Arne going to West Ham and it’s his only option we need to be realistic about our place compared to even clubs in the championship. No good laughing at Micheal Nicholson about us being unable to compete with clubs in the EFL if our players are choosing to go there.
Its all about the promise of playing in the EPL, ignore that and you’re leaving in Roy Kean’s cuckoo land
For a record fee signing Arne never really got my pulse racing e.g. compared to the equivalent amount we’ve just splashed on Hoch.
Good business though and best of luck to the lad. Hopefully West Ham make it back to the promised land.
if we had any ambition we would be investing in a partner club like linfield
——————-
Celtic are tracking Slovan Liberec attacking midfielder Ermin Mahmic, with the 21-year-old Bosnian in line to be the biggest sale ever from a Czech club. (Infotbal via Scottish Sun, external)
Lech Poznan winger Patrik Walemark, 24, is being chased by Celtic and Dutch club Groningen. (Polska Sportowy via Daily Record – subscription required, external)
West Ham are closing in on the signing of Celtic midfielder Arne Engels with a fee in excess of £20m agreed. (Alex Crook on X, external)
Celtic are in advanced talks over a loan deal for 18-year-old Chelsea left-back Landon Emenalo. (Anthony Joseph on X, external)
Celtic retain interest in £6m-rated right-back Niko Sigur from Hajduk Split, along with Torino midfielder Gvidas Ginetis, while Hibernian midfielder Miguel Chaiwa is another option. (Daily Record – subscription required, external)
Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh has held initial discussions with Linfield after being approached about the possibility of investing in the Northern Irish outfit. (Daily Record – subscription required, external)
If its £22m for Arne and the reports about the sell on fee in the deal from Augsburg are correct we’ll profit less than £7m cash from his sale.
Decent money but we should always be looking for more. Its not enough to be doing one big sale that like that every Summer.
CHAIRBHOY on 14TH AUGUST 2026 12:44 PM
The Bada Bing @ 12:29 pm,
Yes, good luck to the bhoy, did great for us, still lots of potential, yet think he really grew at Celtic in several ways.
That has got to be a plus for any other quality talented youngsters like Mika, who want that all important next step up…
It was shamefull the way the groupies on here put the lad down and that “campaign” came from a faction from within the Celtic PLC Board is a stain on our great club – not their only stain, not their biggest stain but a shamefull stain right enough.
…….
Utter drivel , when your next out for a walk do not pick up and sticks.
HH
CHAIRBHOY on 14TH AUGUST 2026 12:44 PM
“That has got to be a plus for any other quality talented youngsters like Mika, who want that all important next step up…”
Who said this about Nicolas Kuhn:
“We can always ask what a Rapid squad player can bring to a UCL Club?”
Crude arithmetic says around 100% profit.
Well done the man who pushed the boat out for the initial deal that drew gasps of shock among the limited- horizoners.
Long gone but still living rent-free in some heads.
And now his ambitious signing goes out the door for mibby twice the fee paid.
TotZiensArne CSC
Chairbhoys model has gone through several iterations on the last few years but here’s my favourite from circa October 2023:
Never sell our best players.
Sign experienced quality, use them to qualify for the champions league and bank the money and buy more experienced players with minimal resell value.
Don’t rely on profit from player trading for income. Break even in player trading.
Brendans model:
Buy players for £7-8m and sell them for £30-40m.
QUADROPHENIAN on 14TH AUGUST 2026 1:18 PM
No sell on fee to Augsburg?
EKBhoy @ 1:06 pm,
Got that proof of the fraud yet!?
No!!
Didn’t think so….
Look, I’m cool about this… the two biggest culprits were emptied from the Board last season.
We see green shoots of the damage they inflicted being repaired…
My hope is the C-suite were not as incompetent as they seemed, that like Lennoxtown, they were trying to do their job with both hands tied behind their backs – due to issues with the neds…
Hail Hail