With every passing day, Celtic's summer transfer window looks worse. It was arguably the worst in the club's history, and yet, the extent of its impact is not known. That will only become clear over the course of the season. If the Hoops are able to deliver silverware again, especially the Premiership, then it will be much easier to forget about although changes are clearly needed as soon as possible.
This deadline day might have shown everything wrong with the way Celtic handle transfers. On one hand, we saw their move for Kasper Dolberg collapse after Ajax swooped in late.
On the other hand, it looks like they had to significantly overpay in order to sign Sebastian Tounekti. It is believed that the Tunisian international was signed for around £5.2 million. And it appears that English Championship clubs had not been ready to pay half of that earlier in the summer window for him.
As reported by 67 Hail Hail, Mark Guidi said on the Go Radio Football Show regarding Celtic's Tounekti deal:
"I think it was a very disappointing transfer window for Celtic.
“Some of the fees that they’ve paid, I’m led to believe that the Tunisian winger, Tounekti, that he was on the radar of a couple of English Championship clubs during the window.
“They decided not to go for him and they believed that the fee was between two and a half to three [million pounds] to secure him and Celtic have paid over five [million] by all accounts."
Celtic fans will be worried by journalist's £5m transfer claim
Well, when you let things drag on until deadline day and need to make signings urgently, that allows the other club to quote higher transfer fees. And it looks like that is exactly what might have happened with the Tounekti deal.
Of course, overpaying would be a problem for Celtic. But the even bigger worry for the fans will be the fact that English Championship clubs were not even willing to meet a £2.5 million asking price. That certainlty raises a lot of questions about the quality that Tounekti is bringing to the table.
From the little we have seen of him, Tounekti looks like a decent talent. That being said, he has not been a prolific figure anywhere throughout the course of his career. One can only hope that the Celtic recruitment department have got this one right.thec