Non media rumours

Shane Duffy, welcome home

 

Ryan Manning was the name mentioned

 

My worst nightmare

 

Sean St Ledger

 

Evan Ferguson

 

This popped up on my timeline... is this name even being mentioned?

 

Some carrot on KDS mentioned him last week

 

Apparently they only want €3mill for him as they've been relegated, would definitely take him to rotate with McGregor

 

He was mentioned a few pages back, it seems to have originated from a poster on the Huddleboard. They were suggesting that he was one Rodgers had pushed for, rather than someone the club had been scouting.

 

I would definitely take him at that price,
He looked very press resistant and a really energetic player. Not a big physical player but definitely technically talented.

 

In before one of the auld yins says we’re better aff wi Bernard…

 

Celtic Da Weekly From the Celtic Underground


Hello, good afternoon and welcome to the Celtic Da Weekly - your one stop shop for baseless transfer rumours and assorted lies. This week’s special “getting our business done early” edition is brought to you by wikipedia, youtube and a random name generator that I use for ghosting folk on Tinder. If you’re new here, think back to the glory days of the Rumour Mill, now imagine it two decades older, thirty pounds heavier, and so utterly tired of life that it couldn’t give a toss about anything anymore. That’s pretty much the vibe.

Before we go any further please remember that when it comes to Celtic “getting our business done early” means the manager has identified who he wants us to sign but Michael Nicholson has locked himself in his office and is refusing to come out to speak with the agents unless he gets Peter Lawwell back.

And a bag of cans.

But don’t let one man’s office-based strategic non-participation drain your spirits. Instead, let’s dive headfirst into the latest transfer whispers rattling around Parkhead. Are you ready to hear about more left wingers than they have in the RMT? (’d have quipped “more left-wingers than Labour,” but frankly, there are more left-wingers in my living room these days. Little bit of politics there ladies and gentlemen, little bit of politics.)

It’s been winger-agogo in the rumour world these past 7 days and it is increasingly feeling like we’re witnessing a weak retread of last year’s summer window, only with significantly warmer weather this time round (remember to get the factor 50 looked out before you head down to the local Aldi - it’s hotter than Santa Ponsa out there today.) You’ll have read that we are being linked once again with Michel-Ange Balikwisha but also half a dozen other blokes who after 2 months we’ll be suggesting “just need a loan spell at Hibs or St Mirren to see if they can make it in Scotland.” The reason for this is fairly simple. We’ve heard that we have a specific player that we want to sign this window but we’re concerned that he’ll end up being tempted away by a better offer so we have put half a dozen irons in the fire and so we have options.

Some of the names are already out there, such as Nilson Angulo and Tajon Buchanan, but we hear that we’ve also spoken with the agent of Tobias Gulliksen who we don’t think has been mentioned before but to be honest we chucked Twitter a while back so you might all already know about this guy. In fact he might already have signed for Mainz or something, we have been a bit distracted this week.

Naturally, the agents of those also-rans aren’t about to sit back and let us choose freely. Oh no, they’ve mastered the art of the drip-feed leak, planting “If Celtic don’t move quick, they’ll miss out on this emerging star!” stories faster than you can say “agent’s commission.” Before you know it, the papers are full of “Celtic panic over winger shortage!” headlines, the timternet goes into meltdown as it screams for Celtic to “DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING! SIGN ANYONE! LOOK!! LOOK!!! RANGERS HAVE SIGNED A FOURTH CHOICE GOALIE FROM LIGMET MILIN! THEY’RE MILES AHEAD OF US! DID I SAY ‘DO SOMETHING’ ALREADY!? THE SKY IS FALLING IN! THE SKY IS FALLING IN!... I’m getting pains in my chest, someone phone an ambulance.” It’s as if folk think we are going to have to start the season with only 7 players on the pitch or something.

And, of course, the agent of the player we really want sits quietly and says nothing.

So yes, we’re rumoured to have more or less agreed terms with Balikwisha’s camp, shaking hands and dotting i’s ready to go. So why the holdup? Well, aside from Nicholson’s legendary habit of faffing about for two weeks choosing whether to sign in blue ink or black, word is our real ambitions lie elsewhere. We’ve got one eye on our dream target, and Balikwisha’s just Plan B, albeit a very handy Plan B, should Plan A decide he fancies a sunnier postcode.

We’ve heard that not one but two scouts have been dispatched to the U21 European Championships these past couple of weeks (not at the same time obviously - 2 hotel rooms? What you think we are? Made of money? By the way get that light switched off when you leave the room, it’s like Blackpool Illuminations in here.) And, while they have been casting a wide net across a few teams, they have been focusing on one player in particular. We hear that we are very very keen again on Moro. As you will know, the Real Valladolid winger was set to join us for about £8.5m in January before he suffered a broken collarbone. That put an end to our interest at that point but apparently he’s been in terrific form of late and has been ripping it up in this U21 tournament.

Valladolid will be playing in the Segunda División (see that? How classy am I? It means “Second Division” by the way. Stick with me kid and I’ll educate you about the wide world of football) next season and Moro has apparently made clear that he’s ready for a move. So we’re back on his trail. In January wages were sorted and a fee was agreed so why the need to have a few options as back up? Well, to the surprise of nobody, due to us humming and hawing over a move this summer, the player’s form has caught the eye of a few other clubs. Apparently Wolves have been lurking in the stands at the same fixtures we’ve been attending, and Ajax, who we beat to the punch in January, are sniffing around again. Moro is due to play against England U21s tonight…

Not to worry, if all falls through Brendan can enact the “Leicester Protocol” and sign Diabate. There’s a joke in there about Celtic Das' obesity levels but I’m damned if I can figure it out.

In other news Callum Osmand is in the building to replace Kenny (Motherwell are said to want him btw) and he has been training with some of the younger players before joining up with the main squad later in the week. Apparently he did his media duties at Celtic Park yesterday and has recorded the obligatory hostage video with Gerry McCulloch. You know the stuff - “how did you feel when you heard of Celtic’s interest? What do you know about the club? Are you excited to make your debut? Given the current constraints of ΛCDM cosmology, how do you reconcile the observed discrepancies in Hubble constant measurements from Type Ia supernovae and CMB anisotropies without invoking new physics beyond the standard model, and what implications does this have for potential early dark energy models or modified gravity frameworks?” They are always the same old rubbish but we soak them up all the same.

Celtic Das have responded to this signing with disgust, and their reasoning is gloriously simple, he doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia page. Now, they aren’t fussed about what this says about his ability, oh goodness me now. The issue is much more serious than that - How on earth are our gag-obsessed jesters supposed to regale us with tales of the new boy’s undying love for the ‘Ra if there’s nothing to click on, ffs? Trying to entertain their 18 loyal Twitter devotees with hot takes like “Callum’s go-to karaoke banger is ‘Ballyshannon Lane’” just isn’t the same level of comedic gold, is it?

You won’t be surprised to hear there’s a veritable tsunami of exit rumours at Paradise. First off, Kühn’s definitely off, and sooner rather than later, please, because his fee is earmarked for that elusive winger. And while we’re at it, the midfielder. Oh, and maybe a centre-half too.

If Portsmouth don’t commit to taking Yang soon we’ve been told that he’ll be loaned out to, you guessed it, Hibs or St Mirren. If we do move Yang on we are interesting in Feyenoord’s Leo Sauer. I tell you what - if we sign him I’d feel like dancing.

Our other South Korean, Kwon, looks like he’s heading out of the club for good and Austria Vienna is likely to be his destination. Which means nothing to me.

Birmingham are rumoured to be looking at taking Trusty back. If he did move there he could link up with Iwata, and Kyogo who is being lined up with a shift to Chris Davies club. I don’t have a very old song to finish this paragraph off.

With Benjamin Nyrgen just waiting for the Kühn money to arrive before he pulls on the hoops, there have been some rumours floating around about who he will replace. You’ll know that there was talk of Engels heading back to Germany and Hatate looking to get off his mark to Italy but we hear that Bernardo is now the most likely to first out the door with Boavista rumoured to be interested. We hear that Nyrgen might not be the only player we are looking at from what appears to be a hotbed of talent at Nordsjælland with whispers that we’d like to bring Caleb Yirenkyi (rather than Joris Chotard) in as Bernardo’s replacement.

Evan Ferguson is a name that keeps doing the rounds but we’ve been told that a move is unlikely, certainly at this point in the transfer window. If there is anything to happen there it’ll be much nearer the close of the window, when, you know, Ferguson is getting desperate…

Talk of a new right back is apparently wide of the mark but the club are anticipating bids of Johnstone this summer. Fredrik Sjøvold has been looked at but is “not a priority” apparently. But here’s a video of him anyway because the music makes me think that it’s a slightly spooky film where someone keeps dropping things.

So there you have it - no concrete deals yet, just a never-ending roundabout of “could be, might be, probably not.” The classic Celtic June Transfer window, if you ask me.

 

Celtic Underground have posted an article regarding some of our planned summer business and players we’re supposedly interested in. It could be a load of *, but I suppose it makes for some fun discussion over the weekend. The article is going for a certain ‘style’, so I’ve tried to summarise it below (and I’ve included Transfermarkt links for most of the mentioned players, for those who like to take a gander at stats - I’ll leave the customary YouTube videos for others )

• We’ve looked at Nilsson Angulo (22yo Ecuadorian who primarily plays at LW for Anderlecht), Tajon Buchanan (26yo Canadian, mainly plays at RW but has played across the the entire right side and a fair amount of LM as well. Spent last season on loan at Villarreal, but is an Inter Milan player) and have spoken to Tobias Gullisken’s agent (21yo Norwegian, mainly a LW, but seemingly played a decent amount as an AM and little at RW. Currently at Djiurgårdens in Sweden).

• Personal terms have been agreed with Balishkwa, but he’s our Plan B. Basically holding out to see if we can get our main target.

• We have two scouts at the U21 Euros.

• We’re still interested in Raúl Moro (22yo Spanish LW playing for Real Valladolid) and the deal was apparently very close in January, before his injury scuppered things. Wolves and Ajax are interested, although the latter were after him in January as well and we supposedly beat them out.

• Motherwell are interested in signing Kenny on loan.

• Portsmouth have expressed an interest in loaning Yang, but if they don’t commit we apparently want to loan him to Hibs or St Mirren.

• If Yang goes, we want to sign Leo Sauer (A 19yo Slovakian, mainly a LW but has played across most attacking/forward positions). He’s currently a Feyenoord player, but spent last season on loan at NEC Breda.

• Birmingham are apparently interested in Trusty, having previously played for them on on loan back in the 22/23 season.

• Bernardo’s the most likely of our midfielders to be for the off, with Boavista having expressed an interest.

• We’re also interested in Caleb Yirenkyi (A 19yo Ghanaian, who’s listed as a CM, but has played a few games as a DM) from Nordsjælland (Nygren’s club) to replace Bernardo. This is supposedly instead of Joris Chotard, who was rumoured recently (I don’t if the implication was that we were never interested in Chotard, or if he’s someone we’ve moved on from).

• Evan Ferguson is unlikely, unless it’s an end of the window move.

• We’re anticipating bids for Johnston, and have looked at Fredrik Sjøvold from Bodo, but it’s “not a priority”. Although I think the Sjøvold was dismissed as a pish rumour the other day.

 

Can't afford to loan Yang out before we secure 2 wingers.

 

Sorry mate but yes we can but only if we can’t get him off the books altogether. He’s just not good enough.

 

Good summary, some interesting names been thrown about there, even if it's from a unlikely source

 

I seen one of the analytics guy talking about that Nilsson Angulo when someone was slagging off his numbers. Says he has unbelievable dribbling ability, like has so many successful dribbles and he's rapid but he's raw and needs work on his decision making/final ball. Thinks that Rodgers would turn him into a machine. His numbers are awful, though.

Not a fan of Buchanan. Had an ok record in the MLS but didn't do all that great at Club Brugges and * knows how he got his move to Inter Milan. I think they actually ended up playing him as like a RWB to give Dumfries a rest. He's been mince at Villareal, too.

If you look at the wingers we have been linked with that you would expect are coming in to be first choice(Orjasaeter, Balikwisha and Moro)... I'd definitely want Moro out of all 3. Hoping we could do a deal for him as he's class. Think we would still need a Kuhn replacement, though.

Kenny moving on to Motherwell would be a good move, for him. Should get plenty of chances there. (Although not sure who there new manager is)

Would be happy to see Yang loaned out. I think we should try loan him out abroad, somewhere like Belgium where Oh has managed to find some success. Think he's more likely to be suited to playing there than the lower leagues of England.

Leo Sauer mostly plays off the left so it's another link to a LW. He's very similar to the likes of Jota, Balikwisha, Orjasaeter in terms of he cuts inside on his right foot. He's got good stats though. 47 games for Feyenoord and NAC Breda and 9 goals and 6 assists for them in that time. I still wish we were seeing more links to players with that sort of raw pace that frightens full backs.

Would be happy to see Bernardo go. Not a fan and never have been. Likely going to take a hit on his fee because absolutely no chance will Boavista spend £3m on a player in this day and age.

Would also be happy to see Trusty head back down to Birmingham if they managed to pay us a decent fee. Won't make the £6m back we paid for him but certainly should be asking for £4m-£5m for him. Performed well in the Champions League. Just not convinced he's the right sort of defender for us. (another one who could do with a good preseason under rodgers to see if he can get the best out of him)

I'm sure I seen another analytics account who talks about young emerging players done one on Yirenkyi and he was very very good but I've only seen him play the odd time, similar to Nygren. He looks good but he's raw. Has the physical attributes to be a big powerful defensive midfielder but he can also play a bit. So, wouldn't suprise me to see him develop into a top box to box midfielder.

Think we are safe with Johnstone for this season but likely he will be targeted from next season.