Fabrizio Romano, the transfer expert, has reported that Portuguese outfit Braga have submitted a €2m bid for Gustaf Lagerbielke…
🚨🔴⚪️ Excl: SC Braga have sent official bid worth €2m for Gustaf Lagerbielke to Celtic, negotiations ongoing.
The player’s keen on the move. pic.twitter.com/9E34hPQtVy
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 27, 2025
Celtic would be well advised to accept this bid and preferably without hesitation. Because let’s be honest, Lagerbielke has been a failed recruitment experiment, so a summer move would suit all parties, and is arguably overdue.
Signed from Elfsborg in August 2023, apparently on the recommendation of Carl Starfelt’s agent, for a fee in the region of £3m, the Swedish international arrived with the familiar billing – young, tall, composed on the ball and with a sprinkling of potential.
We assumed he was a perfect Ange-style centre-half, albeit one brought in after the Aussie had left the building. But in reality, Lagerbielke’s Celtic career never got out of second gear.
His time in the Hoops has been defined more by absence from the team than any influence in it, and he cut a curious figure lost somewhere between Brendan Rodgers’ tactical demands and the club’s muddled transfer strategy of Celtic’s nightmare summer transfer window of 2023, that we still appear to be trying to remedy.
In fairness, it wasn’t all the big fella’s fault. Lagerbielke was thrust into a defensive crisis after injuries to Cameron Carter-Vickers, Stephen Welsh, and Maik Nawrocki forced Brendan Rodgers to shuffle the deck far too early in his first season back at the club.
That he played at all was more down to necessity than readiness. And while he managed a goal against Feyenoord at Celtic Park, it was an otherwise chastening Champions League experience for the young Swede, with a red card in Rotterdam. The harsh truth is that Lagerbielke never looked truly comfortable at the tempo Celtic demand, never mind the intensity of Europe’s elite level.
His positional sense seemed a touch erratic, his distribution under pressure was nervy, and he seemed perpetually half a second behind the play.
For a Rodgers team where centre-backs are asked to build with composure, recover with pace, and dominate duels, Lagerbielke simply didn’t seem to fit the profile.
By the December, he was firmly out of favour, and Rodgers made little effort to hide that the Swede was surplus to requirements. Despite injuries and suspensions, the manager still preferred to patch things up with Liam Scales rather than recall Lagerbielke and two seasons later that remains the case.
There were even failed attempts to move him on in January 2024, just five months after he joined the club — a deal with Lecce collapsed late on — which underlined just how peripheral he had become.
Which is why Braga’s €2m offer feels like a lifeline. For Celtic, it’s a chance to cut losses and free up wages and squad space for more immediate needs. For Lagerbielke, it’s a fresh start at a club and in a league that may better suit his style. And for Braga, it’s a relatively low-risk punt on a player who, in the right setting, might yet deliver on the promise that caught Celtic’s eye in the first place.
Some transfers work, some don’t, and some are just a bad fit from the start. What matters now is that Celtic learn from the Lagerbielke affair – and that summer ‘23 transfer window – hopefully with better scouting alignment, clearer role fit, and less of the scattergun approach to recruitment.
As for Gustaf, a move to Portugal could be the reboot his career needs. Take the money, chuck in a sell-on clause, and run Celtic. And learn from it, please.
Niall J
Braga are in talks with Celtic over a possible deal for centre-back Gustaf Lagerbielke. @SkySportsNews revealed in May that the Hoops are open to offers for the Sweden international this summer.
A number of English Championship clubs are also said to be interested. pic.twitter.com/Hgyi8EkdaR
— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) June 27, 2025
New Celtic signing Ross Doohan spoke to The Celtic Star and two other fan media outlets earlier this week, with Conor Spence asking the questions for us. Watch the video below…
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