Stephen McGowan has named three of Celtic’s summer signing targets.
Now working for Newsquest, but not on a daily basis McGowan has a track record going back over 20 years of being the most accurate source of Celtic news.
Danish duo Kasper Hogh and Jakob Breum have previously been linked with Celtic with goalkeeper Jari de Busser a team-mate of Breum at Go Ahead Eagles.
There hasn’t been much to commend Celtic for in recent times over recruitment with many fans bookmarking the sale of Kyogo Furuhashi as the starting point for a sharp decline.
With two domestic trophies secured that may not seem obvious to an outsider but by most metrics Celtic have slipped badly.
Failure to reach the Champions League group stage was the most obvious black mark. Followed by an indifferent Europa League performance culminating in a 4-1 home defeat to Stuttgart.
Domestically goals and points were significantly down on the levels of season 24/25 with eight defeats recorded in the 25/26 SPFL Premiership.
Big changes are expected over the next three months, getting the ball rolling in The Herald McGowan claims:
The new permanent manager’s first job will be to sign off on a list of targets drawn up by the club’s recruitment team since January.
Danish striker Hogh drew strong interest in the winter window, with Bodo/Glimt’s Champions League heroics driving up the price.
The 25-year-old caught the eye with high profile strikes against Manchester City and Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan and has already claimed five goals in nine games since the resumption of the Eliteserien in April.
Parkhead scouts have also continued to monitor the form of Go Ahead Eagles playmaker Breum after a number of unsuccessful bids in January.
The Dutch club feel the time is right to sell the 22-year-old £4million Dane this summer.
Go Ahead have also been made aware of a tentative interest from Celtic in their Belgian goalkeeper Jari De Busser.
Returning to negotiations with Go Ahead could be interesting.
After a few bids for Breum were rejected the Go Ahead Chairman Jan Willem van Dop delivered a comment that was jumped on by the Scottish media.
STV News reported
Celtic showed some interest in Jakob Breum, but we felt that the gap between us was too wide,” Van Dop told Algemeen Dagblad.
“Things moved very quickly with Oliver Antman and Glasgow Rangers. Celtic could have taken a leaf out of Rangers’ book, haha.”
That sort of comment is guaranteed to create headlines in Scotland, perhaps Celtic have had a change of strategy when it comes to transfer negotiations.
TROUBLED TIMES FOR CELTIC RECRUITMENT
Celtic’s finances make all three deals affordable but until a new manager is installed completing business is unlikely.
Although most transfers boil down to money anyone coming to Scotland will be keen to speak to the Celtic manager before committing to a move.
Martin O’Neill appears to have a fairly unique management style. Although only loan deals it quickly became clear that January arrivals Tomas Cvancara, Junior Adamu, Joel Mvuka and Ben Arthur weren’t improvements on the players already in place.
As well as fresh arrivals the next manager has two key areas that will need quickly assessed.
Players such as Stephen Welsh, Maik Nawrocki and Luis Palma are returning from loans that seemed fairly successful.
While Kelechi Iheanacho and Alex Oxlaid-Chamberlain are out of contract.
Kasper Schmeichel is also out of contract and facing a year out of football with De Busser probably the first of a few goalkeepers to be linked with Celtic.
Is Welsh’s contract not up? Can leave for nowt?
The Antman comment may make headlines that the huns will love but if ever we needed proof that sometimes throwing cash around at bang average players isn’t the way forward, Antman is the prime example.
We need someone at Celtic who actually recognises talent when he sees it, if we have someone we can trust at that base level then the fee almost becomes irrelevant, just get them in.