A Feeder Club in All but Name
Celtic don’t do Winters of Discontent. We’ve developed our own tradition — the Summer of Discontent.
As I write, we’re barely four hours from the Europa League registration deadline, and after signing four loan players in the past 24 hours — Sørenson, Johnstone, Mheuka and Emenalo — it’s painfully clear that Celtic have become a development club for the English Championship. And if anyone thinks “feeder club for the Championship” is an exaggeration, look at where our best players have gone. Kyogo, Hatate, Engels — three central figures in recent seasons — all moved to the Championship. That’s the level Celtic now supplies. That’s the market we serve. That’s the level Celtic now feeds. Not even a feeder club for the Premier League. A feeder club for the second tier. That’s where we are now.
It’s just the latest chapter in the long, depressing saga of Celtic’s managed decline.
Plenty of Celtic bloggers track the financials more closely than I do, but by most estimates we’re sitting around £19 million in the black since last season. That’s not squad building — that’s asset stripping dressed up as prudence.
The fact that the Gineitis deal appears to be completely dead tells its own story. There will be no marquee signing. No statement of intent. No permanent quality arriving in the final hours. Just more short‑termism and more loans.
This is not how you build a squad. It’s not how you build a team. And it’s certainly not how you win back the respect of supporters who are, once again, calling for the removal of the muppets who remain inexplicably enthralled to the muppet master.
Even if Lotembo and Van den Berg sign — both reportedly undergoing medicals — it’s still not good enough. It wasn’t good enough last summer. Or the summer before. Or at any point in the last fifteen years.
I detest transfer windows. They’re an outdated, artificial system that should be abolished. I don’t pretend to have the perfect replacement, but the bi‑annual hysteria benefits nobody except agents. Clubs panic, players sulk, fans lose their minds, and Celtic — more than any club in Europe — turn it into high farce.
See January 2026: a parade of dubious loan signings who contributed next to nothing before quietly returning to their parent clubs. See summer 2025: Tounekti and Balikwisha arriving for £5m each at the last minute. Tounekti has at least offered something. Balikwisha will go down as one of the worst signings in modern Celtic history.
I don’t normally rant about our recruitment “policy” — such as it is — and I won’t belabour it now. Celtic fans everywhere have already formed their own conclusions. We are a laughing stock. A running joke. A club that allows itself to be exploited with every single transfer dealing. The signing of two 18‑year‑olds from Chelsea tells you everything about how divorced from reality the club has become.
Anyway, onto tonight’s match: Aberdeen at home. After watching their turgid showing against our city rivals, this should be routine. McGregor returns after illness (I’d hoped he’d have been shipped to Saudi by now). Three of our new loan signings — Johnstone, Sørenson and Mheuka — make the bench. Høgh is still missing.
After the weekend win over Falkirk, we need to rediscover our clinical edge and put Aberdeen away. Who is actually entrusted with concluding our transfer business while the match is being played is anyone’s guess.
Either way, this window has not been good for Celtic. Maybe we’ve unearthed a few gems who will become fan favourites and help us chase another treble and Europa League glory. Or maybe they’ll be bench fodder who barely make a handful of appearances.
Time will tell — but Celtic have never managed time well. In any sense.
