Ben Banks and Lewis Anderson chew over over the latest Rangers and Celtic transfer headlines.
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00:00Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Glasgow World's January Transfer Roundup.
00:09I'm joined this afternoon by my colleague Ben Banks to look back over the latest transfer
00:16dealings that have taken place across the last seven days. Ben, we're into the final
00:21stretch of the January window. Finally, over the last couple of days, I've seen a bit of
00:28business being concluded, in particular Celtic, some rather noteworthy business there. Kyoko
00:34Furahashi, their talismanic Japanese striker, completing his £10m transfer exit to French
00:40club Rennes in Ligouay-Anne. That also saw the return of Felipe Jota, a fan's favourite
00:50during his time at Celtic, the Portuguese winger who hasn't played much football since
00:58he left Celtic for Al Etihad in Saudi Arabia. That big money move over 18 months ago hasn't
01:05worked out for him in France and he is now back at Celtic Park. That was two positive
01:14pieces of business for Celtic there. But the position that they certainly will be
01:20keen to strengthen between now and the end of the window, you'd imagine, is this striker
01:24void left by Kyoko Furahashi. There's been a lot of chat around whether Adam Ida is the
01:29right person to step up in his absence and give his form this season. You can't imagine
01:35that would necessarily be the case. But there seems to be a strong interest here, Ben, in
01:40Brondby striker Matthias Kvistgarten, who's been a long-term target for Celtic.
01:46I feel like I've written his name, or more copied and pasted his name because we'd have
01:52spelt it wrong several times if we're writing it from the top of my head otherwise, several
01:57times over the last 18 months. He's the name that doesn't seem to go away when it comes
02:01to Celtic. In transfer rumours, kind of since Brendan Nodgers got back, it would appear
02:06that he's been one that he's been after for some time, but for whatever reason he's not
02:09been able to get him. But now it seems like with Celtic now probably taking a step up
02:16the ladder in terms of I think their ceiling maybe before was maybe six, seven million
02:21for a player, and then trying to trade up to a player at 20 million, with Arne Engels
02:26in particular and buying him for 11 million, progress in the Champions League this week,
02:30selling Kyoko for 10 million. It would suggest to me that they now are in that mould of right
02:36now we can look at a 10 million pound player and try and turn them into a 30 million pound
02:39player and that's kind of where Kisvarsson, if I've pronounced that at all correctly,
02:45Matthias I think we'll just call him, probably fits into that bracket. He's been playing
02:50particularly well for Bromby. The form hasn't dipped even amid all the transfer speculation
02:56and it's been suggested that Bromby want a record fee, but that's obviously, you read
03:02that just as plain text and think it's going to be silly money. It is big money for Celtic,
03:06but not money they haven't paid before. Never mind that, they've paid this season for a
03:11player. It would be interesting to see if that gets done before the end of the window
03:18because I think otherwise they'll probably be looking at a short-term loan option. That's
03:22been suggested as well that they could look to the Premier League, at least in the short
03:26term for somebody who is proven at that level but perhaps isn't playing for whatever reason
03:31at the minute. Looking at that, Matthias still in the summer, but you would imagine they
03:37would probably want a long-term fix now rather than wait six months.
03:40Yeah, given obviously Kyogu leaving leaves just Adam Ida and young Johnny Kenny who
03:46I'm not necessarily sure he's going to be the solution going forward. We'll move on
03:51then to other comings and goings. The news has kind of broken over the last 40 hours
03:57that Kieran Tierney, the pre-contract, has been agreed, but it looks as though, Ben,
04:03he'll be staying at Arsenal now until the summer at least.
04:08Yeah, it looks as if Arsenal want him as part of their Premier League title push,
04:13what's left of it anyway. For the rest of the campaign, there's a bit of a triple transfer
04:18standoffy thing going on. There's been claims of Tyrell Malasia from Man United being an
04:23alternative. Sort of similar to the striker, if you can't get your main target, go and get
04:27somebody for the short term so you're not short a cover. With Alex Valle going to Como as well,
04:32that's weirdly still listed as a Celtic player on the website, but both the manager and the
04:37player have said that he's away, so a bit strange there. But it would seem that Tierney's still
04:43involved at Arsenal until the end of the season at least, and I would imagine that's probably
04:50quite a blow for Brendan Rodgers. I can't imagine they would have let Valle go, who has been decent
04:54when he's been called upon. If they didn't think they were going to get Tierney, they must have had
04:58some hope that that was going to get done, but obviously not. They now need to get a left-back
05:05in because Greg, it leaves a real uncertain factor over that position until the summer with Greg
05:10Taylor also out of contract. I know Tierney's signed, but you're potentially going into next
05:16season with one senior left-back, and that one senior left-back has been prone to injury for a
05:23few years now, so you would really need one, maybe need two potentially, in that position, just to
05:28make sure he's got adequate cover. Because the one thing with Tierney, you'll need to manage him
05:32correctly to make sure you can, because he's not going to play every game, he's not going to beat
05:37Calum McGregor and play 60 games a season. He'll probably give you 30-40 games at absolute max,
05:43but you will need to take him in and out the firing line a wee bit more than other players
05:46would. So it'd be interesting to see the type of left-back they get, maybe looking a bit more
05:52long-term in terms of somebody who could potentially be a backup to Tierney or who could come back to
05:56the club and potentially replace Greg Taylor if they don't get that deal done. Interesting one.
06:04Next up, then, we've got Norwegian winger Sondre Orgeseter. It's been reported recently that Celtic
06:12launched a bid of around just over £4 million for the Sarpsborg winger, who's valued at around
06:18£7 million by his club in the Aleticeran League. One that they seem to be quite keen on, obviously,
06:28this is a route they went down with the Odin Tiago home and, albeit, didn't necessarily work
06:32out for him, seems to be the kind of pedigree that Celtic do like, you know, a player that they can
06:39nurture and develop over time. Yeah, very much a player that, when we were reporting on it,
06:44our fans are reading it, you're going, who? And then, I mean, look at Nicolas Koon,
06:49this time last year, I can't imagine any Celtic fan, certainly people in Scottish media,
06:55would have known about him. And certainly, in the basis of the first few months, you were thinking
07:01there was a reason why we haven't known him. Now, all of a sudden, he's been talked about as sort of
07:04the next guy who's going to make the club £20-25 million. So, it'll be, I mean, I can't say I know
07:10a lot about the guy, to be honest, he will be an unknown quantity, but I think more just generally
07:16speaking, the Celtic money-making machine has been really showing its teeth this sort of season,
07:23I suppose, you know, Jota and Tierney sold deals worth £50 million and you're potentially going
07:28to get the two of them back, still in the prime of their careers, for under £10 million, I think,
07:34for the two of them, under or just under £10 million. And of course, agents fees, wages and
07:38all that will come into it. But I mean, you know, Peter Lawell, the apprentice started on Thursday
07:44night, I'm pretty sure, if Alan Sugar's been, if one football supremo on that panel has been
07:49replaced any time soon, I think Peter Lawell could come onto that panel, because these, man,
07:55the amount of kudos he must have at that club now, along with Michael Nicholson, is unreal.
08:00The trading model, people have obviously, I've had their criticisms of him before, and maybe,
08:05you know, they've been tight on the purse strings, but you cannot argue, they've arguably got the
08:10best player trade model for a club of their size and in their market at the minute. So
08:14the business they've done this season and going forward is incredible. And you just get the
08:20feeling now that even when they buy these guys, like say they buy this person at £3 million,
08:25you look at Boss and Lawell, who they brought in for very little, they played five first team
08:31games and then they sold them for what, £4 or £5 million? So it's like, how can you, when you
08:37look across the site, how can you compete with that? Like it's, I think overall, no matter who's
08:43getting brought in now, even if they don't make a first team impact, you're now looking at, oh,
08:47well, it doesn't matter, because they'll probably still make a couple million pounds on them and
08:50you roll on to the next guy. And do you imagine that will be the same case for young Luis Palma,
08:56who was brought in as kind of this next big hope, wasn't he? Hasn't quite worked out for him,
09:02and it looks as though at this stage that Olympiacos and the Greek Super League are
09:08strong favourites to bring him in initially on loan. But it seems to me at this stage,
09:13it's quite clear that he doesn't have a long term future at Celtic. Yeah, he's a,
09:18he gets quite a lot of hype here, he gets quite a lot talked about him because the Honduran media
09:22are very big on him and, you know, sort of have him down as the next coming out like
09:27Henrik Larsen by the sounds of it, but he's one of the, he's a, he's a YouTube player by,
09:31by my account of it, somebody who's quite quick to post the montage reels and, and different things,
09:37you see all that type of content coming up in the social media posts, but then the consistency to
09:42make him a consistent Celtic player just hasn't been there. His numbers, if you look at them,
09:47are actually okay. Like, he has scored a fair number of goals and assists, but this season,
09:52when Celtic have had their problems on the flanks in terms of availability,
09:57you would like to think if he had a proper, a shout of being a regular first team player,
10:02he would be ahead of Yang at the minute, and clearly Brendan Hodger sees Palma ahead of
10:07Yang, Yang ahead of Palma, sorry. So, not too surprised to see him heading back to a league,
10:13I believe, that he's already been in. I think he came here from Arras, and they performed quite
10:18well in Greece. So, you'd like to think for him, it's maybe a chance to go back over there,
10:22build his confidence, a big European club as well, and regulars in Europe, go and build confidence
10:27there, and then it maybe gives him a chance to, to show he's worth in a, somewhere he's
10:31comfortable with, and then he can maybe look towards maybe an older league, I was talked
10:34about this month, maybe after that, you can start to look towards that kind of territory.
10:38Moving across the city then, we'll focus now on Rangers. Since we last recorded our previous
10:46episode, two notable outgoings, Kieran Dowell has completed a loan move to Birmingham City
10:53in the English League One, I may add now they're not a championship club anyway, Birmingham,
11:00and Rabih Matondo, who has completed a loan move with an option to make the deal permanent,
11:08in the summer, to Hanover in the German Second Bundesliga. Two deals that were kind of relatively
11:17inevitable, both players were told earlier this month that they were free to leave the club by
11:21Clermont, and not surprising to see them both completing moves relatively quickly.
11:28Yeah, I think this was on the cards for a wee bit, there's a good, you know, past
11:33Rangers XI being cooked up by Chris Davies down there, you know, I don't know if Rangers fans
11:39would probably want to tune into Ben Davies putting balls into Kieran Dowell, who's then
11:42threading them through to Scott Wright, but I mean, the options there, I mean, what you could
11:47have had in Lyndon Dykes up front as well, so aye, I think it was needed, and you always find
11:54that there's certain players who hit that mould of, you know, they're probably slightly too good
12:00for one calibre of club, but they're maybe not quite good enough to jump up to a certain level
12:05of club, I think Kieran Dowell falls into that category, it's not quite happened for him at
12:09clubs like Everton on a consistent basis, Rangers, but he has shown his worth in the Championship,
12:16in Championship level teams, Birmingham City won't be in League 1 for long, you would imagine
12:21they're going to get promoted either this season or certainly the next, and they'll be back to the
12:26Championship, and that's probably about his level, so yeah, not real surprised to see that,
12:32seen Rabih Matondo go to Hanover, again, going back to somewhere where he has shown form,
12:36where he has shown the, because I think with Rabih Matondo, you've seen in flashes of,
12:40or you could be a good player, you've got the pace that people hate dealing with in Scotland,
12:45but again, it's just that consistency factor, and for one reason or another, he didn't get a run
12:50on the team, and again, probably a move back to familiar territory, a positive for him.
12:56We need to touch on Rangers' striker situation as well, I think Ben,
13:00obviously there's been plenty of speculation around Cyril Desser's future,
13:04a man kind of revitalised in the last couple of weeks, he's been excellent for Rangers,
13:08obviously scoring that equaliser down at Old Trafford, his hat-trick against Fraserburgh
13:13in the Scottish Cup, and was Man of the Match, in my opinion, for Rangers against Union,
13:19Sanjeev Awaz last night, plenty of Italian interest in him, but there's also been reports
13:24that his strike partner, Hans Eggemann, is on the radar of several Premier League clubs,
13:29most notably Everton, and there's talk that obviously Rangers are desperate to keep hold of
13:34him, given that he's only been at the club for around six months, but can you see potential
13:41movement in that area? I don't think there probably should be until the summer, I think
13:49Hans Eggemann's going to be an interesting test case for Rangers, because you can't tell me they've
13:55not at least had a nosy across at what's been happening in the South End player trade model
14:00we've spoke of, and there's been reports this week of Yefty being interested by Chelsea,
14:04and I think that's pretty much been confirmed, or certainly Clermont spoke about Premier League
14:09being a bit too early for him at this minute in time, and it'll be interesting in terms of
14:13Rangers, Rangers is, you know, Achilles heel has been holding on to guys like Morelos and Kent
14:18for too long, and they lose them, they don't sell them on for their maximum transfer fee that they
14:26could have gotten, they ended up losing them for free, you wonder whether if Hans Eggemann can
14:31continue this type of form, not saying now, but if somebody comes in with a big bid, do they need to
14:37then back themselves to go and find the next Hans Eggemann, in the same way Yefty, do they then need
14:42to go right with, it's obviously a blow in the short term, but look at the profit we're making
14:47here, and then we go in and invest that into the next guy we think can do that, and I think that
14:52needs to, this needs to be almost like the start of this kind of transfer revolution, if you want
14:57to call that at Rangers, that the start of them beginning to operate like they probably should
15:03have been doing for the last five or so years, in terms of getting that player trade model correct,
15:08I don't think they can afford to sell Dessers or Eggemann this late in the window, Dessers
15:12especially, it's like, do Rangers need better quality-wise on a more consistent basis, yes, but
15:18I also don't think, I mean, for a backup striker essentially, which is the role he's going to play
15:23as long as Eggemann's at the club, are you going to get him the better who's going to score 20 goals
15:28a season, as consistently as he's shown he has, yes there's major frustrations with him, but
15:32ultimately if it wasn't for those frustrations, he wouldn't be at Rangers, because he is a consistent
15:36goal scorer, he has been wherever he's went, so a very confusing, perplexing footballer, but I think
15:42there's a role for Dessers, to be honest, at Rangers beyond this season, to be honest, I think he's
15:47well worth a place there, he's shown that he can handle, he can handle the criticism and things he
15:51gets, and Hamza Eggemann really needs to be somebody they cash in on, to show that, to give
15:57themselves confidence that they've got a player trade model that can actually help them sustain
16:00themselves going forward. In other bits of business then, youngster Finlay Curtis has signed a new
16:06long-term contract, to understand Rangers are also in talks with youngster Zach Lovelace, the young
16:12attacker, about extending his deal at Ibrox. New loan signing Rafael Fernandes is yet to make
16:20his first team debut as he continues to get up to speed since arriving on loan from French club
16:26Lille. And just finally then, we'll just touch on one potential incoming, obviously we didn't expect
16:33there to be any more than two arrivals at Ibrox this month, but Lyle Cameron, it's all gone a
16:38wee bit quiet over the last week or so, Ben, around this one, there was chat that Aberdeen were
16:44potentially trying to hijack this move, do we have an update around Cameron? It doesn't seem
16:52like it at the minute, it seems as if we had obviously the news about Aberdeen potentially
16:56being interested in the pre-contract, but you wonder with Dundee, they did very well I think,
17:03Tony Docherty, to replace the influence, maybe not directly replacing, but the influence of
17:10Luke McEwan, and not letting that totally hinder their season. I would probably put Luke McEwan
17:17slightly above Lyle Cameron at the minute, in terms of just where they're at in their development,
17:20with Lyle Cameron probably got, he has got a really good ceiling, so is it one of them where
17:27do you bring him in for this six months and almost give him this six months to get the feel of what
17:32being a Rangers player and what's the standard required, and then in the summer we really start
17:37to see them ramping him up to probably where Connor Barron is, where he's a starter or he's
17:43somebody who can come into the starting 11 when required and there's not really a drop-off in
17:48quality. Again, I just wonder with Lyle Cameron, Rangers I feel, it's a tough one, it's that
17:55balance between the player trade model and having players that are going to generate income for them
17:59needs to be a part of it, but they also need players in the here and now that can actually
18:02sustain a title challenge, because already, we're already 31st of January, we're really talking about
18:07the title being over and they have been really successful in Europe, they're finishing the top
18:11eight in the Europa League again, a fantastic achievement, but domestically, outside the
18:16Scottish Cup, we're already really talking about next season, because the league title looks pretty
18:20much done, especially with the reinforcement Celtic have brought in, so it depends whether
18:26they're looking long-term or whether they're looking short-term, and I think if they're looking long-term
18:30then it's not a bad deal to get done. Well, important to stress that the window remains
18:35open until the 3rd of February, so still time for both Celtic and Rangers to complete
18:41outstanding pieces of business. That's all we've got time for on today's show, stay tuned across
18:47Glasgow World and all our social media platforms for all the latest transfer news
18:51heading into the final few days of the window.