The summer transfer window closes this evening so here’s a quick round-up of where we are as we go into the final few hours. This week we have seen the arrival of both winger Luis Palma and central defender Nat Phillips.
Brendan Rodgers far from done as he looks to get his squad ready for the challenges ahead this season including of course that mouth-watering Champions League draw yesterday with has thrown up glamour fixtures against Feyenoord, Atletico Madrid and Lazio and of course brilliant away days for the Celtic support in Rotterdam, Madrid and Rome.
So here’s where we are with more names likely to be added to or scored off the list as the day goes on…
The Celtic admin waiting until 2359 to announce Paulo Bernardo… pic.twitter.com/u3CrD1pUFt
— Everything Celtic (@aboutceltic) September 1, 2023
Tommy Doyle – not happening
Tommy Doyle has signed for Wolves on loan from Manchester City. There’s a £5m option to buy clause included and a whopping 50 percent future sell-on clause for the English and European Champions. England youth midfielder Doyle was linked with Celtic earlier in the window but we can score his name off our list, now and probably in future transfer windows.
Albian Ajeti – One out the door
Amid late interest from elsewhere in Turkey, Albian Ajeti looks like ending his and our frustrations surrounding his costly spell at Celtic with a move to Gaziantep looking at concluding a £500k deal with Celtic and offering the Swiss international a two-year contract. That’s a huge £4.5m loss for Celtic on the sum paid to West Ham but at least we get him off the wage bill as he was never going to feature this season.
Paulo Bernardo – Paradise Bound CONFIRMED…
🇵🇹 𝙒𝙚𝙡𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝘾𝙚𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝙋𝙖𝙪𝙡𝙤 𝘽𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙤
Brendan Rodgers has confirmed the arrival of Paulo Bernardo ✅
Check out this absolute rocket 🚀⚽pic.twitter.com/Q3BixO4brj
— Everything Celtic (@aboutceltic) September 1, 2023
In a deal similar to the one that saw Jota join Celtic from Benfica, midfielder Paulo Bernardo is currently in Glasgow for signing talks having already passed his medical. The highly rated 21-year-old flew into Glasgow yesterday to sign for Celtic who have an option to buy clause as part of the deal, with Benfica retaining an interest in the player after any permanent deal is concluded through a sizeable sell-on clause, as per the Jota deal.
The highly rated Paulo Bernardo was today named in the Portugal U21 squad for their upcoming games against Andorra and Belarus.
The FPF has Paulo Bernardo’s club as Celtic on the official Portugal U21 squad announcement, confirming his move to the club.
🇵🇹 🍀 pic.twitter.com/FDZRdtbVst
— Próxima Jornada (@ProximaJornada1) September 1, 2023
Sead Hakšabanović – Second out the door
Sead Hakšabanović signalled the end to his own Celtic career last weekend with his ill-advised Instagram message that effectively ended his time playing for the Hoops. PAOK want a permanent transfer for Sead Hakšabanović from Celtic and have tabled an offer of €2million for the want-away Celtic forward.
The 2020-21 season taught us never to retain wantaways so let’s hope this goes through. Its Greek transfer window doesn’t actually closes until 11th September and that there is also late interest in the The Montenegrin from South of the Border with Stoke City making an enquiry. They would need to get their man today. But it’s probably more likely that Hakšabanović and PAOK – who knocked Hearts out of the Europa Conference League – are going to win the race. Good riddance from our end.
Ryan Bertrand
The Celtic Star told you last week that Celtic interested in a deal for Chelsea left-back Ryan Bertrand and with strengthening the left-back posiiton a priority, this one could happen today. Bertrand is a free agent who won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2012, could be reunited with the man who coached him at Stamford Bridge as a youth before taking him to Reading and then Leicester.
Rocco Vata
The most frustrating aspect surrounding Celtic at the moment is the perceived lack of pathway for our top young players, something that The Celtic Star continually challenged Ange Postecoglou and John Kennedy on last season. There will be games when Celtic are a few goals ahead where young players from the B-Team and the Celtic Academy could easily get game-time to show what they can do.
Rocca Vata, the son of former Celtic defender Rudi Vata is the latest young talent to look to play his football away from Celtic and last night Celtic rejected a bid from Nottingham Forest whose sporting director is of course Ross Wilson, formerly of theRangers. Vata is in the last year of his contract but appears to want-away. Celtic though have Champions league quotas and Vata helps the home-grown numbers as an Academy player.
The bid from Forest was also just above what Celtic would get from a cross border development fee in January, so you can understand the decision. Unless a bigger offer comes in the 18-year old looks like seeing out 2023 as a Celtic player.
Quick update on this one, Celtic have today rejected a £550,000 bid from Italian side Torino and have signalled their intention to hold onto the player in this transfer window. Whether that changes in the course of the day remains to be seen as money always talks in football.
UPDATE: Celtic have rejected a £550,000 bid from Torino for forward Rocco Vata.
They don’t consider him for sale in this window.
Celtic hope to convince Vata to sign a new deal, but he would like to explore his options elsewhere.
Lazio, Verona & Torino all keen on pre-contract https://t.co/39CMYYoVyD
— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) September 1, 2023
Ismaila Soro – he’s away
🇨🇮 | 𝗜𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮 𝗦𝗼𝗿𝗼 – 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗜𝘀𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗹
Israeli side Beitar Jerusalem have completed the signing of Ismaila Soro on a permanent deal from Celtic.
[@fcbeitar]pic.twitter.com/c0GfY81lC2
— Everything Celtic (@aboutceltic) September 1, 2023
Aris Thessaloniki are really close to signing Ismaila Soro from Celtic reports reliable Greek journalist Giannis Chorianopoulos. Good to get this one sorted and Soro out the door.
❗Aris Thessaloniki are really close to sign Ismaila Soro from Celtic 🟡🟢@CelticFC #ARIS #CelticFC #Celtic
— Giannis Chorianopoulos (@choria80) September 1, 2023
READ THIS…Mick can’t even say ‘Celtic’ – “The team we’re playing against aren’t coming in a fantastic place”
The problem we have with vata currently is the potential lack of players to make up the 8 required for CL.
With Welsh unlikely to feature due to injury, does this mean we have to turn to vata and Mikey Johnston just to make up the 8 required now?
In turn, both vata and Johnston along with potentially turnbull, Welsh, and Forrest are highly unlikely to feature in to many match day squads for SPFL, unless the injury list remains an issue, due to the increased competition for starting and squad places.
This remains an ongoing issue within the club with struggling so badly with getting the required Scottish talent.
Ridiculous situation to find ourselves in a situation where players are getting places within a CL squad, yet deemed not good enough at SPFL level for ourselves.
Just hoping from next season onwards that an increased number for a squad is risen to 30 instead of 25, to help ease this embarrassing situation the club currently finds itself in, and without any foresight of actually combating the current situation all Scottish club’s find themselves in, especially with European football in mind.
The Scottish fa remain responsible for the situation with no development as such in place, so as long as the national team are doing OK then the club structure is left to rot.
Rant over
Bertrand is about 90 and has played about 4 games in the last 2 seasons. Not what the doctor ordered tbh. The Portuguese guy is another matter.