Celtic face a huge summer transfer window at the end of this season after a disappointing 2025/26 campaign that saw three different managers on the pitch.
Brendan Rodgers, Wilfried Nancy, and Martin O’Neill have all been at Parkhead at various points this season, and the Hoops are second in the Scottish Premiership as a result.
O’Neill should lead the team for the rest of the season as an interim, but it remains to be seen who will manage the club for the first game of next season.
Whoever is in the hole next term, recruiting in next summer’s transfer window needs to be better and easier than last year.
The Hoops made too many mistakes in last summer’s window, which saw them end the campaign without a trophy, and they must learn from those mistakes.
Big mistake Celtic made last summer
Arguably, Celtic’s biggest mistake last summer was failing to replace Nicolas Kuhn after he joined Como for £16.5m.
The left-sided winger has provided goals and assists regularly throughout his time at Parkhead, meaning his departure has left the team short of quality in that position on the right.
Celtic, however, responded to his sale by signing two left-backs, Sebastian Tounekti and Michel-Ange Balikwisha, despite already having Daizen Maeda, who scored 33 goals last season, as a left-back option.
It was a weird transfer strategy and time hasn’t changed that opinion. Now in March, Balikwisha has not played a single minute of league football, although he has not been selected since October.
Tounekti, at least, has played 21 times in the Premiership. The Tunisian, however, has scored just two goals and provided one assist in those 21 appearances, after joining from Hammarby for £5m.
Therefore, the biggest mistake Celtic made was to sign two left-backs, when they needed one badly, and not sign any specialist right-winger to replace Kuhn, who is valued at £16.5m.
Not only did Balikwisha look like poor business, because of his absence, but Tounekti has yet to prove himself to be better than the player Rodgers sold almost two years ago.
A better former Celtic flop than Mikey Johnston
Celtic paid around £10m to sign Tounekti and Balikwisha to strengthen their options on the wings last summer. In the summer of 2024, they sold a player for £3m who now looks the better of the two.
After loaning him to West Bromwich Albion for the second half of the 2023/24 campaign, Rodgers allowed the Hoops to sell Mike Johnston to the Baggies for £3m in 2024.
The Irishman scored 13 goals in 93 games for the club after coming through the academy, but rarely got the chance to claim a place in the XI on a regular basis, starting just six Premiership games between the 2021/22 and 2023/24 seasons.
Johnston scored seven goals in 18 Premier League appearances while on loan at West Brom, but that was not enough to convince Rodgers that he deserved a place in the first-team squad at Parkhead.
Now, the left winger is thriving in the second division with the Baggies. He has scored two goals, created 11 ‘big chances’, and assisted nine goals in 27 league starts so far this season, despite playing for a side battling relegation.
Johnston’s performance at West Brom in the Championship this season has been far better than what Tounekti has produced in the Premiership for the Hoops, making it look like Rodgers made a mistake when he chose to pay the Irishman.
|
25/26 |
Tounekti (Prime Minister) |
Johnston (Tournament) |
|---|---|---|
|
Appearance |
21 |
34 |
|
Goals |
2 |
2 |
|
Great opportunities have been created |
3 |
11 |
|
Key passes per game |
1.5 |
1.6 |
|
xA |
4.09 |
7.59 |
|
It helps |
1 |
9 |
|
Dribble success rate |
45% |
52% |
The Scotland international has provided nine times as many assists at league level as the Tunisian striker, and both have yet to score.
These figures suggest that Celtic would be better off with Johnston at their club, despite selling him for £2m less than they paid to sign Tounekti last summer.
This is perhaps a lesson we can learn before the summer as there may be some players on loan now who can return under the next manager and be used as quality options, instead of selling them and spending more millions on new recruits.
Celtic are leading the race to sign Kris Commons next at Parkhead this summer
Celtic are already eyeing the summer transfer window.
The likes of Maik Nawrocki and Luis Palma come to mind. Perhaps the next manager will want to take a look at them before their season before their future is decided.
