Celtic FC: Here We Go Ten In A Row

Do not accept a bid that low! Should be going at a premium because he is british!

He's probably worth at least five times that offer. Newcastle need to be let down (not so) very gently.

mgriffin2012 I was pissed it was such a low offer, he won't be sold ever

Justice Rafa got a very insulting email for such a shit bid

foxsports
Jun 9, 2017 at 7:10p ET

This might be the biggest and most unexpected transfer this window, as Atlético Madrid's Fernando Torres is set to join Celtic, on July first on a free transfer. The news of this transfer broke early in the morning from a Sky Sports report.

Despite the Spaniard's admission that he’s enjoying life in Madrid and is willing to renegotiate a contract, a bid came from the Scottish Champions and it was one he could not refuse. People will finally be able to see a Brendan Rodgers/Fernando Torres partnership that could have happened had Torres stayed at Liverpool one more year.


The 33-year-old will join the Bhoys on a one-year deal, Sky reports. Should the certain conditions are meet, Torres will have his contract aurtomatically extended one more year. The former Atlético Madrid striker would bring not only a wealth of experience, but also a scorer’s touch. His 22 goals in 73 La Liga appearances in the past three seasons shows he can still play at a high level.

Torres fits the prototype striker that Rodgers uses, offering a stable presence that can both hold up an attack with his back to goal, attack crosses into the box and link well. Along with Moussa Dembele and Leigh Griffiths, he will make the Celtic attack ever more feared. Despite Dembele's amazing first season in Scotland, the team is looking for that one player to get them over the hump in the Champions League and it looks like it has arrived.

In other Celtic news: Brendan Rodgers has came out and said Kieran Tierney is not for sale. Rodgers was asked about the bid by the recently promoted side earlier in the week. Also Crystal Palace has made a move for Leigh Griffiths and it's status is unknown at the present time. Finally a £4.3m bid by Olympique de Marseilles for defender Erik Sviatchenko was rejected.

Torres is a fantastic signing and will bring some real class to the squad. Some of the bigger European clubs and Premier League sides may be sniffing round but I'm sure you'll tempt a large majority of the squad, at least, to stay.

ScottT He is going to make this club even stronger. I hate the transfer window as I press reject way too many times haha

Justice It will be a bigger hit than the Carlton Cole song.

BRENDAN Rodgers will take his treble-winners to the Mediterranean nations of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey for a pre-season training camp as the Hoops prepare for the domestic and European challenges ahead in the new season.

The Celtic squad will report back for duty at Lennoxtown in two weeks’ time before heading out to the region a few weeks later.

And as well as working on the training pitch, the Hoops will also be in match action, with two pre-season fixtures already confirmed.

Before heading off to camp Celtic will host Derry City in a match set for June 30th at Celtic Park. The match is set for a 7:30 kickoff.

Following the match against Derry City the Hoops then travel for the next three matches. Starting on July 7th Celtic will travel to Turkey to face Konyaspor. After the trip to Turkey we head south to face Apollon Limassol in Tsireio, Cyprus. Finally we wrap up the tour in Greece against Panathinaikos on July 9th.

A fifth preseason match is set for the end of July and it is a special one. Captain Scott Brown will have his testimonial against former club and newly promoted Hibernian. This will be a special day for him and it will take place on the 24th.

Stay tuned for all the latest updates and all five matches will be broadcasted live on Celtic TV.

The draw for the Champions League Second Qualifying Round from Nyon, Switzerland is now over. Celtic were placed at the top with a coefficient of 53. In the draw Celtic were placed against a familiar opponent, Olimpija Ljubljana, who we played in preseason last year.

Celtic have the honors as we host the first leg on July 12th at Celtic Park. On the 19th Celtic will travel to Slovenia for the second leg of the series.

The home leg of the tie is included as part of the 2017/18 Celtic season ticket package. Tickets for the game are also on sale now HERE.

Both legs will be featured live on Celtic TV.

25 June 2017

Danish defender Erik Sviatchenko becomes Rudi Garcia's fourth signing of the preseason. Along with Thomas Robinet, Ozan Tufan, and the return of Clinton N'Jié, Sviatchenko joins a OM squad that is looking to make a run at PSG in Ligue 1 as well as a Europa League title.

The 25 year old has made the move from the Scottish Premiership, more specifically Celtic, a club where he has continued to further his ability which was already strongly recognized by many. Before the move to the Scottish Champions in 2015, Erik Sviatchenko was a member of Danish club Midtjylland.

His departure from the club has represented the fourth time he has switched teams in his professional playing career, having moved from Viborg FF to Midtjylland in 2006 before moving on to Celtic as already mentioned and now to Olympique de Marseille.

During his time at Celtic, Sviatchenko became one of the key players and was even vice-captain entering his second season with the club. In the two seasons he won numerous trophies and made 43 appearances while scoring 3 goals.

For fans of Celtic his move is seen as a shocking one as he had a bright future with the six in a row champions. Rudi Garcia had him on his radar for the past season and finally was able to sign him a few days ago. OM had an initial bid of €4.8M at the start of the month but was rejected. A second offer of €7.25M would be agreed upon a few weeks later. Despite the loss of a quality player Celtic supporters should be delighted about the fee that was paid for him.

Garcia is still determined to add more to his squad in order to compete both domestically and on the continent. With the free spending owners it looks as if OM will finally be able to catch up with their rival and become more competitive.

That's a huge sale! With that kind of money, you could easily add a couple of European quality players to your squad.

Justice I hope I can find some decent players haha. I might just need one more player that will get me over the hump since I have Torres, Larsson, Gauld and a few other prime time players. I have a guy joining from a city rival that you will see soon who is quite the prospect and I have loaned him back for the year.

Celtic: The Hoops win the battle for Liam Linday while Nir Bitton joins Wolfsburg

4 July 2017| Football

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Scotland Under-21 defender Liam Lindsay has signed a four-year contract with Scottish champions Celtic, who also just sold Nir Bitton for a fee of £5.5M.

Despite interest from down south the 21 year old Lindsay has signed for city rival Celtic. With interest from clubs such as Oxford United, Middlesboro and Aston Villa the highly touted defender wanted to stay local.

The £725K transfer comes with a catch that most of the teams bidding for him did not care for. Lindsay will stay with the Jags on loan for the current season. For Celtic that was not a deal breaker at all.

Lindsay had an outstanding season during the last campaign, emerging as the leader of the Thistle defense and eradicating the mistakes that had been evident in his early appearances in the first team.

While Thistle would love to keep him at the club, they are happy that Celtic agreed to let him stay for one more season, on loan.

"I am very excited to join Celtic and be apart of such a prestigious club, I also am happy that I will be staying with Partick on loan for this season, they are a great club as well and I feel that this will be a good season for us," said Lindsay.

Brendan Rodgers said:"This is a deal that will benefit both clubs and I feel Liam will be an asset for us in the future but for now staying with Partick on loan is a good move. This was a low risk transfer and I feel it will work out for the best for all parties involved."


For the past two weeks Celtic were in negotiations with several clubs over the services of midfielder Nir Bitton, who was seen as one of the odd men out as Ryan Gauld and Sebastian Larsson joined the Green and White.

Nir Bitton joined the club as one of two late signings in the summer of 2013. The young midfielder arrived with a wealth of experience having broken into FC Ashdod's first team at the age of 17, where he played alongside Efe Ambrose, before going onto make over 100 first team appearances.

The move to Wolfsburg is seen as a good one for Nir as he gets a chance to showcase his skills in one of Europe's top leagues.

He becomes the fifth player to be sold from Celtic Park since Brendan Rodgers joined before last season, along with Saidy Janko (Barnsley), Liam Henderson (Hearts), Erik Sviatchenko (Marseille) and Logan Bailly (Bari). In total Celtic have sold £13.5M in players.

In other Celtic transfer news Kristoffer Ajer was moved to AEK Larnakas in his second loan in two seasons and Scott Alan joined Dundee on loan. Brendan Rodgers is still looking for some talent as rumors of Diego Llorente to Celtic intensify.

THE past ten days of training camp and preseason friendlies are finally in the books as the Celts win all four matches.

It was a great session for everyone including all of the new players who made several impacts. In the nice weather off the Mediterranean everyone got a chance at some sun and fun both in the games and while relaxing.

Manager Brendan Rodgers feels that the team is ready for a great season, here is what he had to say: " I was delighted with our performances, and we didn’t even hit top gear. The new two striker tactic was very effective in all the games played, and the players suited it very well so I am very happy with my decision regarding the system. So, overall I was delighted with the results and am hoping we can continue this standard in competitive games which are forthcoming.

There would have been a fifth match later this month but it was canceled due to our opponents Betfred Cup match. It was the Scot Brown Testimonial and hopefully will be rescheduled at a later date.

Here is how the four matches played out for the Bhoys.

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Our set of preseason fixtures began with a match against Irish club Derry City at Celtic Park. As this was the first match of the season with the guys back there was some rust to shake off. Well it felt as if they guys never left for break. In a 3-1 victory we saw the usual suspects of Scott Brown, Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair score.

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Following the Derry City match, Celtic jetted off to Turkey for the first of three matches in the Mediterranean Training Camp. This was a fairly easy result as new signing Fernando Torres showed he could still play with two assist. The blowout continued as Scott Brown, Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair scored for the second match in a row, Dembele would add two this game. Fifty-five minutes in to the match Gary Mackay-Steven finished the day off with a goal of his own.

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After a day of rest followed by training Cyprus would be the next stop. Winning the game 4-1 with the hosts springing no shocks in being incapable to deal with our attacking talent. Unsurprisingly, Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair scored again. There was another name to the list of goal scorers this preseason as Leigh Griffiths contributed to the game with two goals of his own.

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The training camp finally ends in the ancient city of Athens, Greece. Playing against our brother club Panathinaikos it was looking to be a nice and enjoyable day, but things quickly turned south for the host as Fernando Torres opened up the scoring one minute into the day. For Celtic things would heat up as Moussa Dembele scored his first of five goals two minutes after the Torres goal. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth minutes Celtic would score three goals in a row including the first of three penalties scored by Scott Sinclair. At the end of the ninety minutes the score was 11-2.

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With the short preseason over it is now time for Brendan Rodgers and Company to focus on the rest of the season. As noted before the plan this season was to do a long training camp that had two phases, the first in Glasgow and the second away in Europe for three games in a week. This was used so the guys can focus on Champions League.

July begins with the Champions League Second Qualifying Round, Olimpija Ljubljana in just two days from Celtic Park. Finally the Premiership kicks off against rival Rangers in the first Old Firm of the season, set for a July 29th date at Ibrox.

Friday 14 July 2017



The draw for UEFA Champions League Third Qualifying Round Draw has been made at the UEFA Headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. With the Third Qualifying Round being the round where some of Europe’s biggest clubs finally join the qualifying process for this seasons UEFA Champions League Group Stage.

Celtic FC lead the Champions Route with the highest coefficient while Dynamo Kyiv was the top club in the Best Placed route.

All ties are played 26 July & 2 August.