Gineitis signed after the CL catastrophe?? Celtic’s transfer activity post-LASK shows the insanity of this club’s way of operating

The Daily Record are calling it a “rousing crescendo”.

Six signings in the works, the whole lot to be crammed into the last few hours of the window.

Their words, not mine.

A crescendo?

A crescendo is what you get when a piece of music has been building to something.

What we are watching is a fire drill.

Joel van den Berg has had his medical after a £3.4 million move from PSV Eindhoven.

Oliver Sørensen’s season long loan from Parma was done and dusted on Tuesday.

Gvidas Gineitis is expected to leave Torino hours after playing in their Coppa Italia defeat to Monza.

Chelsea teenagers Landon Emenalo and Shim Mheuka are both expected before the window shuts.

🎥 EXCLUSIVE: Chelsea striker Shim Mheuka arriving at Glasgow Airport tonight ahead of his loan move to Celtic. pic.twitter.com/vwoHPEJZHm https://t.co/Q7XBdjo5nd

— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) September 1, 2026

Sam Johnstone, 33 years old and slipped down the pecking order at Wolves, is on the brink of a season long loan to sit behind Viljami Sinisalo.

And Feyenoord’s Jordan Lotomba is locked in talks over a right-back berth that only became urgent when Alistair Johnston picked up a muscle injury.

Reo Hatate has gone to Burnley for an undisclosed fee, and Johnny Kenny to Preston for £3 million.

I went through the Gineitis end of it in more detail this morning, if you want the numbers.

So here we are, hammering six deals through in a single afternoon, eight days after we were dumped out of the Champions League in Linz.

Eight days.

That is the bit I cannot get past.

Every single one of these deals could have been done in July.

Not one of them needed the LASK tie to be lost first.

Van den Berg was not invented last Thursday.

Gineitis has been chased all summer – I was writing about him back on the 1st of July.

Sam Johnstone has been surplus to requirements at Molineux for the guts of a year.

None of this is new information.

So why are we cramming the lot of it into one afternoon in September?

This is the definition of shutting the stable door long after the horse has bolted, and it is fooling absolutely nobody.

Well.

Maybe the happy clappers.

They’ll be along shortly to tell us what a masterstroke this window has been. Six deals in a day, and not one of them a moment too soon.

Job done, lads, away and enjoy your Europa League.

But I’ll tell you what it looks like from where I am sitting.

It looks like the total stupidity of the Celtic board laid out in public for anyone who cares to look.

Because here is the part that makes me want to put my head through a wall.

The money was always going to be spent.

One way or another, whatever this board wants in that bank account ends up in that bank account.

Season tickets, hospitality, the merchandise, a net profit on transfers – it all lands, every year, without fail.

So what exactly was the problem with making sure there was an extra £40 million sitting in the coffers as well?

Because that is roughly what a Champions League league phase is worth to a club our size.

We went to Austria one or two players short.

The board knew it.

Martin O’Neill knew it, and he has said as much since.

And rather than spend to protect a £40 million asset, they sat on their hands and rolled the dice.

They gambled £40 million to avoid spending £15 million, they lost, and now they are spending the £15 million anyway.

Make sense of that if you can.

Now, I’ll be fair about it, because some of this is decent business when you take it on its own.

Van den Berg at £3.4 million for a 19 year old who stood out for Jong PSV is a punt worth taking.

Gineitis is the midfielder we have needed since Arne Engels was allowed to walk.

🚨 @CelticFC e @TorinoFC_1906 continuano a lavorare per portare Gvidas #Gineitis in Scozia: in mattinata altri colloqui positivi tra club per provare a raggiungere l’intesa. Come riportato ieri, il Toro chiede agli scozzesi di alzare la parte fissa dell’ultima offerta.

🟢 Il… https://t.co/Kj9qCvmDN6 pic.twitter.com/At4tXYZmac

— Giacomo Morandin (@iljackmora) September 2, 2026

And if all six are announced before 11.00 pm tonight, the squad that starts the Europa League will be a far better one than the squad that went to Linz.

That is exactly the point.

That squad should have existed before we ever set foot in Austria.

Not eight days after it.

Four of the six are loans, which tells you everything about how much of this is a rebuild and how much of it is a panic.

Sørensen carries an option to buy at an undisclosed fee.

Johnstone carries no option at all, at a club that has been crying out for a permanent goalkeeper for two seasons.

Emenalo and Mheuka go back to Stamford Bridge in May.

So of the six, we actually own two.

Two.

And that’s the squad rebuild we were promised, is it?

That is the great crescendo, from a club that has just walked away from the richest competition in world football.

The Europa League registration door shuts at 11.00 pm tonight, and the Scottish window follows at 5.00 pm tomorrow.

By Friday the narrative will be set in stone.

Strong window, deep squad, best of the rest, onwards and upwards.

The SMSM will run it, and the cheerleaders will share it.

And nobody in that boardroom will ever be asked the only question worth asking.

Why not three weeks ago?

They won’t be asked it, and if they were, they wouldn’t answer it.

Because this was never a transfer strategy.

It was lastminute.com.

And it has cost us £40 million…

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