Summer 2018

[wee_od_88]

Apparently our attempts to sign Denayer have been boosted as Galatasaray and Torino have both dropped out of the running to sign him. Galatasaray were believed to be Denayer's choice but I think both parties possibly wanted a permanent transfer but perhaps couldn't come to an agreement with Man City over the fee. Denayer's agent is said to still be looking around for another move for his player but we could soon look to be one of the better options, it may depend on securing European football though!

 

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Arzani has completed his signing of a 2 year loan deal with us.

 

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Brendan Rodgers was spotted down at The Etihad in Manchester taking in the Man City vs Huddersield match. Suggestion is perhaps he was down to not only take in the match but to discuss loan moves for a few other Man City players.
A Man City fan twitter account posted suggesting that it could be a loan move for either Douglas Luiz or Philippe Sandler.

Sandler is a 21 year old CB who has just been signed this summer by City from PEC Zwolle in Holland after he got a free transfer there from the Ajax U18 squad. Looks like Ajax have missed something with this one. He's also capable of playing DM suggesting like many Dutch players, he's good on the ball. His value is currently £2.25m....which is more than Boyata yet he's only made 30 appearances in the Eredivisie....it doesn't really make much sense but there you go, that's part of the problem we face when it comes to trying to sign players. Will he add quality for us in defence.....well it wouldn't seem he should be adding much quality but he might......

Douglas Luiz I don't think we'll be signing. He is a 20 year old Brazilian midfielder who Man City signed last year from Vasco da Gama but loaned him to Girona in Spain. He has recently been denied a work permit to play for Man City this season which Pep said he was disappointed with as he could have played a part for Man City this season. His value is currently only £1.35m but that's because he's only played 42 first team games in his career so far. The simple fact that he's not allowed to play for Man City suggests he'll need to go abroad because we have the same rules up here as English teams do so why would he get a permit to play for us?

Could he have been down to speak to Denayer?

 

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Things are starting to move a bit in the transfer rumours!

Christie looks like he could be going to Sunderland. I'm assuming that Sunderland can still sign a few players on loan because they're in the lower leagues because the English window is shut early.....not quite sure how it works.

Jeffrey Bruma is being mentioned. That would be a VERY good signing! The Wolfsburg defender has formerly played for PSV, including in the Champions League and Europa League so would bring some good experience as well as coming through the Chelsea youth team and playing alongside and learning from the likes of John Terry. Bruma is 26 years old and moved to Wolfsburg 2 years ago from PSV for around £11m. He still has 3 years on his contract so any move is likely to be a loan but still a good addition!
Wolfsburg have a very large squad and so could be looking to send others out on loan or sell them as well. Kaylen Hinds the former Arsenal youngster who can play anywhere across the front whether as a winger or a striker or a supporting striker. Paul-Georges Ntep is a former French international winger who doesn't look like he's going to get a look in this season. He's lightning quick and loves to take a man on.....sometimes a bit too much though! Not sure Scotland would be the right place for him but worth considering. Riechedly Bazoer is the other one we should probably look to actually sign but the price might be a bit high so a loan would do too. Listed as a defensive midfielder, the former Ajax player is able to play anywhere in midfield and from the footage I've seen is more of an attacking player equally able to play out wide!

Still unsure who Rodgers may have been in Manchester to speak to.

We've apparently put in a bid for Scott McKenna from Aberdeen despite him being injured at the moment. Although our opening offer is likely to be rejected. I can't imagine we will fuck this up like we did with McGinn. It will really come down to whether Aberdeen are willing to sell. I like McKenna but is he really the answer? He's still young and learning, he's raw like Hendry and Ajer......don't we want someone more experienced?

We rejected a £13.5m bid from Porto for Ntcham apparently.

 

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£3.5m bid for McKenna apparently but Aberdeen made it very clear he was not for sale in this window and so we have stopped pursuing him.....for now!

There's still talk of a deal for Jeffrey Bruma and him being available for around £7m. For that money we could also probably get Tomas Kalas from Chelsea. The now 25 year old has been one of those players constantly loaned out by Chelsea although he has made a handful of appearances for the Chelsea first team. He has spent the past 2 season on loan spells at Fulham and helped them win promotion last season. He's not the biggest but he is a solid defender and he reads the game well as you would expect from someone who has trained and learned from John Terry. He has over 110 appearances in the Championship, over 60 in Holland and he's a Czech Republic international player. Why or how he's not been signed by someone, even Fulham this summer is somewhat of a mystery. There has been talk of Leeds Utd going for him and there was talk of an £8m permanent deal for Kalas and another Chelsea loanee/outcast Lucas Piazon who was also on loan at Fulham last season but nothing has come about. If the figure of £8m for the two players is correct.....why are we not trying to make that happen? Their wage demands could be one issue but given neither have ever really been in the Chelsea first team picture, surely they're not on that high a wage and we can offer them European football. Piazon is a left winger predominantly but can play up front or anywhere across the attack. He was born in Brazil but has Italian citizenship so getting a work permit etc should be no issue. Piazon is 24 now and has had loan spells in the Championship and Holland. Both players are now at the age where they need to consider where they want to play football and not just be loaned out. Kalas has 3 years left on his deal while Piazon only has 1 but neither player has been given a squad number for this season and don't look to be in the new manager's plans.

Another Chelsea player in the same situation is Michael Hector who before breaking into the Reading team that then won him a move to Chelsea, spent time on loan at Aberdeen. He became a bit of a fan favourite. He's a big solid, no-nonsense CB with good movement. He has 2 years left on his contract but again has not been included in the squad for the new season and has no squad number. That would suggest Chelsea will be happy to let all or any of them go for perhaps a lower price than normal.

All 3 players have missed out on moves to other English clubs so will have to go abroad but obviously all have spent time in Holland or Germany etc in the past so that's not a big deal for them. But we can offer them something that other clubs can't and that's European football and surely that has to be an attractive proposition. Brendan must surely know Michael Hector and a good chance he knows Kalas too but it's less likely he's worked with Piazon.

Other clubs looking to offload players and have ones we should look at include Wolves who have a decent looking RB who can play CB as well. He's like a young Lustig! Big and tall but lanky. He actually has quite an awkward looking style but it really works for him. Dominic Iorfa is a 23 year old RB who is not in the new Wolves manager's plans and has no squad number this season. He has 2 RBs ahead of him in the team. He's a former England U21 international and he only has a year left on his contract. He'd come in as back-up most likely but a lot of fans feel Lustig's ability as a RB has diminished enough that we need a proper successor and sometimes you need someone a bit bigger at RB rather than the small but speedy Ralston/Gamboa.

Another player I've found is Adalberto Pearanda, a Venezuelan international, 21 years old currently with Watford but again isn't in their plans. He has 2 years left on his contract but spent the past 18 months on loan at Malaga who were relegated from La Liga last season. He's only really had that 18 month spell in first team football but shows a lot of promise. He's something very different to what we have. He's happy to play as a LW or he can play up front. He's got great ball control and skill, loves to take a man on but perhaps doesn't have the final ball at the moment. He's not really a goal scorer but he can definitely create and make things happen. If played up front, you use him to hold up the ball and let others catch up with the play. He's a slightly odd one but given his age and the fact Watford don't want him.....he's worth a look at taking on I think. He could be just what we need to break open defences or when playing away in Europe. He also offers a chance of a good return on any investment. Given Watford forked out a ridiculous £9.5m on him.....it's difficult to know how much of that they want to claw back for a player they don't want.

 

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Correction to the above. Penaranda has work permit issues and Watford do want to keep hold of him as they bought as a long term investment. The new boss is actually hoping that rather than loan him out, he keeps him even if he just to train and learn from his teammates.

 

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Marseille watched Dembele on Sunday against Hamilton and are thought to be considering a late bid for the striker. I can't imagine we'll let him go without a replacement and we won't have time to bring anyone in if they leave it too late. The window closes this Friday. We need to have a busy week as it is without having to worry about replacing a striker as well!

Boyata's future is still up in the air but at the moment it looks like he could end up staying! Rodgers praised his goal and performance in the Hamilton game and said he couldn't leave out a player of Boyata's class. However he confirmed that with both Hendry and Simunovic currently injured as well as Compper being a no-show for far too long now, Rodgers confirmed we're looking to add a new player.

On defenders we've been linked with a loan move for Filip Benkovic. We have been linked with him for a few years since he broke into the Dinamo Zagreb team to replace Simunovic. However he has just joined Leicester in a £13m deal (which shows why we weren't able to sign him) but they've bought him to be back-up or as a future CB, an investment in the future.....just seems bizarre! So with that being their mindset we're keen to take him on loan and get a top CB without having to fork out the money for one.
Another CB we're linked with is a French U20 star, Harold Moukoudi. The 20 year old plays for AC Le Havre in the French Ligue2 and has 1 year left on his contract. He's valued at £900k on transfermarkt but the club value him at around £5m! Apparently this is the way football is going, even players with 1 year left on their contract are valued at about 5 times what transfermarkt thinks! Absolutely bonkers! Anyway, he looks to have good potential, he's a big unit of a CB and seems to communicate well and try and organise which would be good with Ajer as he is similar. He doesn't look the most mobile but with other more mobile players around him that shouldn't be too much of a problem. However the video I found of him doesn't show him at his best defending, he does get a goal in the video but the defending you see of him is not that impressive.

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We're also linked with Samir Memisevic, the 25 year old CB at FC Groningen apparently put in a man of the match performance for his club at the weekend. There's talk of him being our new VVD but VVD was younger than Memisevic so it's a different sort of situation. if Memisevic comes in then he'll be here for a while, unlikely to be the sort of player we sell on for a profit!

 

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Slightly worried by the lack of transfer activity at Celtic this week! The window closes on Friday night, we need players in! Transfer Deadline Day used to be a big spectacle that we could be part of because the window closed on the same day as the English window but now that's changed there's no point in waiting until the last day of the window to try and make deals happen! Get them done now!

Apparently we are considering a move to take Douglas Luiz on loan from Man City as apparently the work permit regulations are more relaxed in Scotland than they are in England....(who knew???) so that could still happen but again why the wait?
Brendan Rodgers has confirmed he knows of Harold Moukoudi but they were a long way off from that which suggests he's a target but not one we've made any contact with his club about.

If we finish this summer window having only signed Edouard, Arzani and Bain then it will be deemed a HUGE failure! I think most Celtic fans would rather sell Boyata and take the money and bring in 2 new CBs rather than keep him and lose him for nothing, or for a smaller fee come January. Armstrong and Patrick Roberts have still not been replaced and with Sinclair still not on form we could do with another winger. That said, Lewis Morgan looks like he could be the business so it will be interesting to see him when he's back and fit.
Question marks also on who's going out. Obviously Boyata is the big talking point but what about Scott Allan and Ryan Christie? Christie has been more involved with the first team but still doesn't look to be going to get much first team football while Allan isn't likely to get in the team at all.
Calvin Miller was supposedly going on loan to Dundee but that move doesn't seem to have happened yet. The plan is for him to go out on loan and get the first team football he needs this season. With Gamboa's resurgence, Ralston may well end up back out on loan again this year as well.

 

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Youssouf Mulumbu is the best we can come up with so far! Apparently signing him on a 2 year deal.

Big bid for Dembele rejected as we don't have a replacement and Brendan Rodgers expects the Frenchman to stay. He'll most likely be off in January but hopefully by then we've sorted out a replacement.