Jonathan Fear 
After last season’s somewhat unexpected Scottish Premiership and League Cup double for Celtic as serial winning manager Martin O’Neill returned to Parkhead twice in a single season to save our Board’s blushes, the summer has been a bit of a mixed bag.
Whatever can be thrown at, or said about, our pre season preparations and the business that we have done so far in the 2026/27 summer transfer window, we have begun the season in pretty fine style with four straight victories to our name. Six goals scored and two conceded have given us back to back victories in this years title defence campaign in the league, we comfortably progressed through the League Cup second round stage, and we opened up a much wanted 3-0 advantage over Austrian side LASK in this years’ Champions League Play Off stage.
With the second leg on away soil this week, and fans who like a flutter on online football betting knowing that a very comprehensive progression is in our own hands, fans are now naturally wondering what additional business may take place between now and the start of September with Deadline Day looming. The speculation rumour mill continues to be full of both reported ins and claimed outs, but the stories suggesting that a deal for Niko Sigur is now very close, just will not go away.
It is said that former Motherwell, and now French side Toulouse’s manager, Jens Berthel Askou, has joined the race for the 22 capped Canadian international versatile defender, and it very much seems that there will be progress one way or another soon. Hajduk Split boss Gonzalo Garcia has now admitted that the player will have to be assessed before he decides on whether or not he will feature in what could be his last game for the Croatian team.
He had already been left out of the match day squad for their tie at the weekend against NK Osijek because of all the rumours about the deal, and it seemed originally that our long term admirer status of him had now reached a conclusion, but the timing of the interest from France may have caused a slight delay here. Should he now miss their vital second leg Europa Conference League Play Off with Polish team Rakow Czestochowa, many would believe that a deal could now be at the final 24 to 48 hour stage.
He did feature against them, playing the full 90 minutes in the first leg, so missing two games on the spin has to be telling – although it should be said that it had been reported previously that his omission from the squad had been owing to a slight injury.
Clearly it seem that their manager wants to assess his frame of mind to feature this time around though, so Celtic fans will naturally be looking on the internet to see whether or not he features in the starting XI, or even the wider match day squad, when the team’s are announced for Thursday evening’s clash as they look to build on a first leg 2-2 draw.
Hopefully there will be news quickly on this one, as then we can maybe turn our full attentions to any other priority targets.
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