Celtic pundit Kevin Graham has recently made a prediction about the club’s business in the upcoming January transfer window.
Graham appeared as a guest on the latest episode of the ‘A Celtic State of Mind’ podcast and the panel discussed multiple issues involving the Bhoys. One topic of discussion was Celtic’s potential signings in the January transfer window. Graham believes that he doesn’t see the Bhoys signing players permanently and he feels that Neil Lennon’s men will only bring in players on loan deals.
Should Celtic sign players permanently in January?
Yes
No
The Bhoys had signed Shane Duffy, Mohamed Elyounoussi and Diego Laxalt on loan deals in the summer transfer window. Albian Ajeti, Vasilis Barkas and David Turnbull arrived on permanent deals as well (as per Transfermarkt).
Graham believes that Celtic spent a lot of money in the summer transfer window and they may not have too much left for the January window.
He said (21:04): “We blew the money already. We’ve got no money to spend in January unless we sell somebody and we are going to rebuild in the summer. There is already hints getting dropped in that the players are going to move on in the summer, so the rebuild is going to happen in the summer. So you could actually see just guys coming in on loan and give the players a bit of freshness.
“Like [Oliver] Burke and the three guys you mentioned, who didn’t really make an impact for us – didn’t really make an impact at all but they gave us that freshness that we needed after the winter break. So we may see that again but I can’t see any long-term players coming in.”
TIF Thoughts on Graham’s comments about Celtic’s January window…
In 2020, Celtic signed two players on a permanent basis in January. They spent £3.60m on Patryk Klimala and £2.07m on Ismaila Soro. In the summer, they spent £11.43 million on transfers and this shows that the club has spent quite a bit in the year.
The club has lost revenue because of the pandemic as well and the financial results have showed that. So because of that, perhaps, Celtic would be better off not signing players permanently in January unless they offload their own players.