Manager Brendan Rodgers’ decision to return to Parkhead for a second spell in our dug out has proven to be the inspired choice that we all hoped it would be and the 52 year old gaffer basically picked up where he left off by, immediately returning to success and adding further trophies to our already illustrious history.
With the 2024/25 Scottish Premiership season seeing a successful defending our crown once again, as well as lifting the Scottish League Cup, the Celtic Park faithful will more than remember some very memorable European nights under the floodlights as we admirably battled our way to the Champions League Knockout Play Off Stage, narrowly losing out to German Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich on a one goal aggregate defeat. So naturally, expectations are again high when it comes to what we can potentially achieve in the 2025/26 campaign. For those fans who like a flutter they will be pouring over pre season odds and predictions right now, but for those who prefer their online gaming to come from casino sites they will already be well aware of the plethora of different options that there are out there for them, and with just under a month to go before the big kick off, there is also plenty of time to still indulge before football begins to get in the way again.
As every fan knows, additional success on the pitch will come down to how well we manage to strengthen the gaffers’ first team options, both in terms of real quality additions to the first names on the team sheet, but then improved strength and depth behind them on the substitutes bench as we again juggle game time across all the fronts we will be fighting on.
With a few moves already made in the summer transfer window with a number of departures, and our capture of Nordsjaelland talent Benjamin Nygren, Kieran Tierney, Ross Doohan and prospects Isaac English, Callum Osmand and Hayato Inamura, the speculation rumour mill obviously has us linked with a number of other potential signings and one of the latest is eleven capped Italian Under 21 international Giuseppe Ambrosino.
The 21 year old youth talent is pretty well rated by Napoli who have already given the young lad four different development loan spells away from the club to bolster his first team involvement, and it is being reported this week that we are on the cusp of agreeing a season long loan for him to come in and bolster our ranks. If the deal works for us, it is being suggested that we will have an option buy clause in the loan.
It is not the only striker that we are being heavily linked with at the moment, as it is believed that as we properly look to replace the previously departed Kyogo Furuhashi (and with some doubts surrounding the more immediate future of Nicolas Kuhn), Rodgers is eyeing a potential four attackers to increase our chances of at least one new face significantly hitting the ground running.
Japanese striker Shin Yamada’s £1.5 million move from Kawasaki Frontale is believed to be edging closer to competition, and we are also apparently tracking Belgian winger Michel-Ange Balikwisha, and fellow Rapid Vienna wide attacker Isak Jansson.
With Nygren already through the door, and Yamada close, you would think it unlikely that we would progress deals for the other two speculated targets given the options we already have, but we all knew our somewhat unexpected European progress last season would have significantly bolstered our finances given the revamping of the competition, and it does look like we are using that to our full advantage this summer.
It could still be an interesting few weeks on a Celtic transfer front, and the Parkhead faithful will be watching on in anticipation.
