Crystal Palace wanted £6million for Justin Devenny, so naturally Celtic asked if we could just borrow him instead…then whoops, Stoke actually offer money for him!

Apparently, we were in for Justin Devenny.

Not buying him, mind you.

Loaning him.

The Scottish Sun reported that Celtic made an approach for the Crystal Palace midfielder, with journalist Alan Nixon claiming we had opened talks over a short-term deal.

A short-term deal for a 22 year old who is in the final year of his contract at Selhurst Park.

Just let that sit there for a second.

Last week we were being linked with a £6million move for the boy.

This week we’re asking Palace if we can borrow him.

We were not trying to sign Justin Devenny, we were trying to put a hold on him until the day he would cost us absolutely nothing.

Because that is exactly what this was.

His contract at Palace ran out next summer.

Take him on loan for a season, hand him back in May, then sign him on a free in June.

Palace get nothing.

We get a midfielder for the price of a year’s wages and a handshake.

Ingenious.

It’s not football recruitment, it’s layaway.

And who does that benefit, other than the balance sheet?

It tells you everything you need to know about how the men running our club think.

This post from 20 Minute Tims has been doing the rounds today, and it says it better than I can:

“We’re trying to loan a player until his contract runs out next summer, then becomes a free agent.

Never heard anything of the like.”

Nuff said, really.

Now, in fairness to whoever dreamed this up, it isn’t a stupid idea in isolation.

If you could get a Premier League midfielder in for nothing and then keep him for nothing, you’d take it every day of the week.

The problem is that Crystal Palace are not run by idiots.

They are willing to sell him, they are not willing to gift him to us, and there is a rather large difference between the two.

The reporting is clear enough on that.

Palace would far rather take £6million now than watch a 22 year old walk out the door for free in ten months.

Any loan is unlikely unless it carries an obligation to buy.

Which, of course, defeats the entire purpose of the exercise as far as Celtic are concerned.

We all know how this works by now.

The second a fee is attached to something, our interest cools.

Devenny is a Scottish-born Northern Ireland international with 60 appearances for a Premier League club and 12 caps.

He was at Airdrie and Kilmarnock before he went south.

He can play midfield and he can play left wing-back.

Six million for a player of that profile is not a bad bit of business in 2026.

Try telling that to the Celtic board.

Do you remember the last time we paid the asking price for anybody without a fortnight of public haggling first?

Neither do I.

This is the same board that shipped Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kühn out the door and never bothered replacing either of them.

Sixteen players out this summer.

Four in.

And with a squad this thin, we are haggling over a midfielder we have already been told the asking price for.

I said last week that reality was closing in on these people.

It has clearly not closed in far enough.

Because a club in genuine trouble does not spend deadline week trying to find a clever way of not paying.

It pays, and it strengthens, and it worries about the accounts in June like every other club in Europe does.

Michael Nicholson has had since last June to sort this squad out.

Instead we get this.

An offer designed to be turned down, and a story we can all point at afterwards to prove we tried.

Make no mistake, that is the real value of a bid like this one, and it isn’t on the pitch.

It buys a headline.

It buys a line in a Q&A at the AGM about how we were in for a Premier League midfielder.

It buys the happy clappers something to wave in front of the rest of us.

And if the whole thing collapses, well, it wasn’t our fault, was it?

Ands then, as if by magic, what happens?

Stoke City come in with a serious offer for Devenny.

🚨🏥 BREAKING: Crystal Palace midfielder Justin Devenny is doing a medical at Stoke City.

Northern Ireland international set to sign for Championship club before the deadline. @JPercyTelegraph pic.twitter.com/72wxcH2bhe

— Palace Report (@PalaceReport) September 1, 2026

Palace wouldn’t play ball with us because insanely, someone was actually willing to pay money for Devenny

I’ve watched this club operate for too long to have expected anything less.

The pattern doesn’t change.

We find the player, we identify the price, and then we spend the last 48 hours of the window trying to get him for less than the price.

Or no price at all.

Sometimes it works, and we all pretend that was the plan all along.

Mostly it doesn’t.

Shock, horror, this time it didn’t either.

And how many windows in a row do we have to watch this before somebody upstairs learns from it?

And the support pays for it in September and October and every European night in between.

Deadline day is here, and our midfield still has a hole in it the size of Kerrydale Street.

The clock is running down on the men who created this mess.

Devenny won’t be arriving now.

Either way, the thinking behind the ‘audacious loan bid’ tells you all you need to know about Celtic in 2026.

We are a club trying to buy a Premier League midfielder with a voucher.

Jesus wept.

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