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With manager Brendan Rodgers enjoying another season of success in the 2024/25 Scottish Premiership campaign, and adding a very enjoyable and lucrative revamped Champions League Play Off run to our calendar, in just over three weeks time it all begins again as we properly kick off the new 2025/26 season by hosting St Mirren at Celtic Park.
With the transfer window opening during the off season, the speculation rumour mill has been in overdrive for a while when it came to potential incomings and outgoings at Parkhead and it has been quite a busy summer so far with the likes of Greg Taylor and Gustaf Lagerbielke departing, whilst we have already seen the arrivals of Benjamin Nygren, a returning Kieran Tierney and a couple of others.
For those fans who like a flutter, they will undoubtedly be all over the odds available on the varying predictions being made at this stage of the summer, as it will make a nice change from laying a bet on cricket or Wimbledon at this time of the year.
With speculation persisting that we could soon add Kawasaki Frontale striker Shin Yamada to the incoming list with claims of a £1.5 million fee now being agreed for the 25 year old, and sadly add seemingly in demand winger Nicolas Kuhn to the leaving list, it seems that our summer business to refresh the gaffer’s first team options are far from over.
As we head towards the end of another week as our pre season build up continues and our friendly preparations help to bring fitness levels and sharpness back to where they need to be after some much needed down time, fans will be eagerly watching on as links to both Rapid Vienna winger Isak Jansson and Royal Antwerp attacker Michel-Ange Balikwisha continue to dominate the main headlines.
Whilst the rumours linking us to Jansson seemed concrete, it is now being reported that their valuation on the 23 year old Swedish talent has become too rich for us as we believe that there are better, and more financially sensible, alternative options out there for us. That change in approach from Celtic appears to stem from claims suggesting that French Ligue 1 side Nice have now agreed a £9 million fee for his services and we were just not prepared to go that that high. With additional reports suggesting that he has now been asked to stay away from the clubs pre season preparations, it appears that this deal may likely now go through before the end of the weekend.
On the Balikwisha front, there has been no material change in our supposed interest in the 24 year old, but fans will certainly read into reports that he has recently missed one of their training sessions. With Celtic’s supposed interest in him going back to the last January transfer window and clear claims that talks are already ongoing over securing a deal for him, it remains open to debate as to whether he too has been asked to stay away from training, whether he missed the daily session for purely understandable reasons, or has engaged in a little bit of – shall we say Union action – in an effort to try and grease the wheels of a deal to go through.
Amidst all the speculation and the rumours it will be interesting to see the make up of the squad that Rodgers has available to him for the opening day of the season, as with the transfer window remaining open until the end of the month of August, there will undoubtedly be additional moves that go through and as we all know in the modern world of football – money talks.
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