Season 13/14 | Page 5 | Vital Football

Season 13/14

Agree with your point about Balde, I read that as well and just thought it was totally wrong! I saw another article on another site "Breaking news, Balde does know how to play football" or something like that......I would suggest they clearly haven't watched what I have when he has been given a chance. You can't expect him to impress unless he is given some time on the pitch.....

Stefan Johansen, I like this lad. I'm sure I may have posted about him once before; I've certainly done some scouting and got his name bookmarked as one to keep an eye on. He has apparently been watched even by Man City and Roma while former Norway star John Carew said that when Villa fans ask him who they should sign, he tells them he thinks Johansen is a top quality player to get.
He has been likened to Modric and I can actually really see why from his play, he has similarities but I would suggest Johansen is a bit more physical and he's taller anyway which helps.

I've also now heard about our interest in the Sporting Lisbon young winger, Carlos Mane. Don't know much about him other than it seems his choice is between us and Man Utd but I also think I read that he had been "offered" to both teams. That those were his choices and the teams could put in a bid where his price was basically already decided. I believe Sporting Lisbon are still having some financial difficulties which may be why they are looking to sell.

Also in the news, we are apparently keeping an eye on Charlton Athletic defender Michael Morrison. He will be 26 in March, has never played in the top flight of English football, has a contract expiring soon but apparently has proved himself to be one of the best defenders outside of the Premier League. A few teams are apparently looking at him and we are one keeping an eye on the contract situation. Every transfer window since Tony Mowbray was in charge we seem to have been linked with someone from Charlton, what's that all about? He's not that tall but can fill in at RB as well as play CB. I suppose he'd be good back-up but don't see why he'd be worth it more than having a good young defender from our youth system.

Mouyokolo is almost back from his injury. He's recovered far quicker than expected and should be back jogging in around 10 days.

Other news suggests that Tom Rogic may go out on loan for the rest of the season. He is desperate for game time so he can go to the World Cup and Neil Lennon don't want to stand in the way of him going to that but they need to make sure any deal is the right one for both the player and the club.

Dylan McGeouch is apparently wanted by Steven Presley at Coventry City. They are prepared to offer £250k for him but are apparently still under a transfer embargo. If the embargo means they can't sign him, they will look for a 6 month loan deal instead. McGeouch is another player like Rogic who really needs to be playing otherwise he can't progress. A loan move would be the preference if he isn't going to get game time but for the right price, I could see us letting him leave which would be a real waste of talent! Does anyone else remember the game in Phili when he had his jaw broken after a horrible tackle while playing Real Madrid. McGeouch was taking the piss out of he LB and LW the whole game until that happened. They were having to try and double team him and still he made them look daft by beating them. These were no young or fringe players at Real either, these were first team players! The boy has enormous talent, but he needs games!

A wee video of Johansen to see what y'all think.

[youtube=NmTCVaLUPOY]
 
Samaras is apparently either going to go to Trabzonspor for about £750k and a big pay ackage or apparently Atletico Madrid are interested but may prefer to wait until the summer, in which case they may well miss out.

Austrian striker (and captain) Marc Jankohas said he would welcome the chance to join Celtic, stating he would walk from Turkey to Glasgow to join. Strachan tried to sign Janko years ago when he was at Red Bull Salzburg. He promised Red Bull he would stay for one more season but still spent 2 days in Glasgow to see the city, stadium and training complex. Neil Lennon showed him around that day and he has always been impressed by us, but he made a promise to Salzburg he would stay, then he moved to FC Twente in Holland. We then tried to sign him from Twente but unfortunately for us, Porto made him an offer he couldn't refuse but things didn't work out and he moved to Trabzonspor. In his career, he has scored 104 in 204 games for his clubs while also scoring 16 in 37 games for Austria.

Sounds like a good player to bring in, if we can for the right price! Importantly, we clearly know about him and he wants to join us! Because things haven't worked out so well, he actually says if he could have done things different, he would have joined Celtic!

In other news, Henrik is back in management at Swedish side Falkenberg and is apparently interested in taking Bangura on loan from us. I wonder if it's just Larsson or whether Celtic have actually approached him and said "would you take him on loan and try and help him".......
 
Johansen deal could be completed tomorrow! Good signing but not one I would have said we were desperate for unless Ledley goes.

Paul George, the talented Irish winger is out on loan at Hamilton Accies.
 
We;re not desperate for him, but he is a passing midfielder, a creator. That's what we need. ledley is sure footed, but he is really just a solid all around player who is spectacular at nothing. He's a Paul Hartley type. I like him, but he isn't a great passer. Brown is really a defensive terrier. Mugrew is good from set pieces but not great in attack. So this could solve a big problem for the team.
 
I agree welch, he should be a good fit (hopefully) but the talk was that we had about 3 layers to choose from for each position, those 4 positions were CB, LB, attacking midfield and striker. Johansen isn't an out and out attacking midfielder so I don't see how he fits in to what was believed to be our shopping list. So unless Ledley has decided he's off, I still don't understand the move.
I'm not complaining though, that's another one of my scouting targets signed!!!

Rogic was apparently set for a loan move to Japan but it is on the verge of falling through it seems. Apparently there are other options though.

Lennon was apparently at the Fulham vs Norwich game last night. Rumours immediately suggest he was looking at Darren Bent, Berbatov or the wishful thinkers say Robert Snodgrass.
Snodgrass would be great but it's going to be difficult to stump up the cash for him and to pay his wages, we don't have the tv money Norwich have!
Berbatov is old and nearly done, he's also very lazy and his wages will be HUGE!
Darren Bent has made a living out of 1 or 2 good seasons, the rest of the time he has either been injured or not scoring. His wages would be astronomical again and I just really don't think he justifies it.

So who was Lennon looking at? Well I have 2 guesses, Matthew Briggs a 22 year old LB who didn't actually play last night but Lennon may have gone hoping he would. He's not first choice but made his debut at the age of about 17 and has always impressed when given his opportunity. He's highly rated and is good going forward as well as in defence.
The other option might be that he was looking at Dan Burn, a 21 year old CB who did play last night.
 
Transfer news today about Callum McGregor, our talented young midfielder who has been on loan at Notts County for the first half of the season. McGregor is currently back with the Celtic squad but Notts want him back on loan until the summer, Wolves are apparently interested in signing him as well as other clubs down south. Celtic have however said that they are NOT willing to sell him. This pleases me because I'd love to see him come into the team eventually. He's gone out on loan and done a fantastic job!

And just for a laugh.......Rangers approached their players about a possible 15% pay cut to try and reduce costs at the club. The current wage bill is apparently in the region of 6-7 million......the players rejected the idea!
 
Rogic is set to join Melbourne Victory on loan until the end of the season after a bid from Sydney FC was rejected as we don't want to sell him.

Apparently Lennon was down in England during the week because we are interested in Snodgrass......apparently we want him for £4.5m but Norwich's asking price is £6m!
 
I doubt we get him but I am glad to see the club get into a bid for £4.5m. We haven't looked at a bid that size since acquiring Brown. So good on Lenny.

 
Seems we've been told to forget about it, but we might go back in for him in the summer! He's a Celtic fan, when he comes up to Scotland he leaves very close to the stadium, we were his boyhood heroes.....he'd love to join us!

Not many other moves it seems.....so much for the imminent bid for the Egyptian wonderkid.......Very quiet on the defender front, there's been a few strikers mentioned but it all seems to have dried up.....that's usually a good sign though, all of a sudden we will come out of nowhere with a signing!
 
On one hand, the cub has gotten better at keeping things quiet until there is a signing. On the other, this IS the January window. I'd have thought we'd be in for a striker to bed them in before CL qualifiers.
 
On one hand, the cub has gotten better at keeping things quiet until there is a signing. On the other, this IS the January window. I'd have thought we'd be in for a striker to bed them in before CL qualifiers.
 
We have taking a young 17yr old Hungarian striker on trial

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12040/9127267/transfer-news-mark-murai-joins-celtic-on-trial-according-to-his-agent

We are strangely linked to Rhys Williams from Middlesbrough.

We are also linked to 6m benfica wonder kid

http://www.insidefutbol.com/2014/01/21/benfica-braced-for-formal-celtic-offer-for-filip-djuricic/123079/

I've heard snoddgrass has told Norwich that he won't be extending his 18 month contract. He wants to join us.
Norwich more or less said they would rather he stayed until the summer at least than accept any offers from celtic in this window. He's worth more to them in keeping them up

 
Good to see you, Belfast. In other news, reports in Portugal have linked Celtic with a £6 million
move for Benfica midfielder Filip Djuricic. That's a lot of cash. I wonder if they really have pushed the boat out after this year's dreadful CL bid. This is either total BS or something is going on to make the suits loosen the purse strings for a pair of players in this price range. Perhaps someone is about to grossly overpay for Sami!
 
Yeah that's what I took from the stories about Snodgrass as well. They need help to keep them up and he is definitely part of that. It's also believed his price will have dropped come the summer, perhaps to the £4.5m we are willing to pay.

I have NOTHING on this young Hungarian striker, he's 17 and plays for the bottom placed club in the Hungarian league, but if he has even played in the first team yet, it's only been a couple of games. He must be a tip off from a scout. I don't know if we still have some sort of presence over in Hungary or not, Willie McStay went out there to manage for a while and I think part of that was that there was some sort of Celtic connection somewhere in the country.

Haven't heard about Williams, always seemed like a talented CB but he was tied up on a long contract, Middlesbrough didn't want to sell and just never seemed to push on since Middlesbrough were relegated from the EPL.

Filip Djuricic is a player I'm sure I looked at before but always thought he would be out of our price range. It's talk of somewhere around a £6m bid.....for a 21 year old, that's some serious talk from us!

He hasn't done terribly well at Benfica since joining them in the summer but he has played in the Champions League this season, scoring 1 goal in 3 appearances. In the league however, the manager isn't so sure of him, he's only made 4 appearances with 1 assist. Altogether he has 2 goals and 1 assist in 15 appearances for club and country this season.
Compare that with being at Heerenveen last season where he played LW, AM or CF and he scored 14 goals with 10 assists in 48 appearances, including Serbia's World Cup qualifiers and the Europa League.

He's a good young player, has a presence on the pitch, decent pace but not blistering, he has skill and a creative side to his game and he's strong but my problem with him is.....does he really fit into our team? Paying that much money, you have to imagine he will start quite a lot of games, but who misses out? He basically fills the same positions as Rogic, MacGregor or Forrest, I'd rather see them play than splash out money like that!
 
Rogic is out on loan and I think he will not last here. Forrest is young but I think limited. MacGregor? We've seen little of him. So there is room for Djuricic, but is he worth £6m if he isn't starting for Benfica?
 
Rogic is out on loan......we had offers of clubs wanting to buy him but we said we DO NOT want to sell. I think Lennon has high hopes for him and he stated earlier in the season he had been unlucky because he was going to be included in the games more often but has been hampered by injuries. He needs regular game time to make the World Cup squad and that is about the only reason he has gone. He hasn't gone because we don't want him, he has gone so we can do the best for him by giving him games and getting him ready for the World Cup (him playing in that is good for us too) and then being ready for next season.

Forrest has been playing really well recently but still has limitations to his game. He's not going to leave any time soon though.

MacGregor we haven't seen in our first team but we've had offers to buy him and they were told he isn't for sale either! He was out on loan for experience and game time, he got both of those and has been very impressive! He may go back out on loan again but I'd rather he stayed now and got some game time.

So yes there is room right now, but when these players are all fit and back with the team, then what? We send them out on loan or on the bench to never end up being used? Not so sure that will happen with Rogic, it could with MacGregor but at the same time, I think he's got the ability to make it with us! He's still only 19!
 
http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9127546/scottish-premiership-benfica-say-there-has-been-no-bid-from-celtic-for-filip-djuricic?

Benfica insist that they have received no formal approach from Celtic for Serbian midfielder Filip Djuricic.

The Bhoys' boss Neil Lennon is a long-term admirer of Djuricic, who only moved to the Portuguese side last summer.

However, Benfica have insisted that there has been no contact with the Scottish Premiership club regarding a move for the former Heerenveen player.

"We have not received any call regarding the transfer of Filip Djuricic," a club spokesman told Skysports.

Meanwhile, we are hearing from sources north of the border that Celtic are considering making a move for Middlesbrough's Rhys Williams - who Swansea City have held talks over.
 
Atajic is now out on loan. Looks like Rhys Williams is coming and there is a new look at Leigh Grit=ffiths.
 
It seems we were working on a deal for a European striker but they couldn't get the deal done. Haven't heard who it was and now we are looking at either Griffiths or Yann Kermorgant (32 year old French striker from Charlton) who has scored 8 goals in 23 games. We've been linked with this French born striker for a number of seasons now but never made a move, however he is free to discuss a pre-contract now as his deal is up in the summer.

Clearly this striker we failed on was going to be our first choice and hopefully a European quality striker.....however since that has fallen through we are now looking at a couple of players who I personally don't think would be worth bringing in. Griffiths can score in the SPFL, that's obvious but that's not just what we need. I don't think he's good enough for Europe and neither is the this guy at Charlton.

Good to see Atajic out on loan at Shrewsbury, he needs games and hopefully he'll get plenty of opportunities and start putting the ball in the back of the net for them!
Callum McGregor has also gone back on loan to Notts County until the end of the season.

In other news that will delight many a Celtic fan........Mo Bangura is looking for a new club! Celtic are actively looking to sell him. Lennon says it is in his best interests as he needs games. To quote him "It's fair to say he has no future here" so he clearly hasn't impressed in training since his return. His contract isn't up though so we will maybe look at a swap deal or try and find someone who wants to buy him.

Things seem to have gone quiet on Williams but I would imagine he is still our top defensive target. He's good back-up. I just still feel I'd rather see us bring on some of the young lads.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Latest Celtic News