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When Are Celtic Going To Spend Some Money?

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Before I start, I’m not overly complaining. But Brendan Rodgers has been manager now for a while. Pre-season training started a fortnight ago. The countdown clock is ticking towards Champions League qualifiers and to some people we look stuck in the mud.

Things changed at Celtic with the appointment of Brendan, but there are signs that maybe they didn’t change enough. Some lessons clearly need to be reviewed again and again and again and again. Some mistakes just continue to be made, over and over and over.

I know we will spend money. We have to. Brendan can’t have come cheap and it would be ludicrous to bring a top drawer boss into the club and then hamstring him. It would make zero sense, and he wouldn’t have taken the job under those conditions.

When Deila arrived we went into the first year’s Champions League qualifiers scandalously unprepared for what would follow. There seemed to be almost a refusal inside Celtic Park to see the writing on the wall, and it had been clear from the way we were swatted aside in the Champions League groups in the season before.

The glaring holes in the team were not properly filled. A bunch of loanees came in, with no commitment to the cause at all. At least we’ve avoided that ridiculous state of affairs here. But we were always going to require more, and the signing of Dembele aside this pre-season has been characterised by a lot of rumour and speculation but very little action.

You get the feeling there are still people inside Celtic Park who just aren’t taking this stuff seriously, who think because we’ve got a top class boss in now that everything will simply slot into place. Two friendly matches in, Brendan is still trying to work out what the natural positions of some of our players are, because the squad seems so grossly imbalanced.

I trust that when he figures out that we’ve got seven or eight central midfielders, none of whom is a natural in the holding role, and a dearth of genuine wide players, that he’ll deal with it. But certain areas of the pitch require attention right now and real money to be spent on them. Central defence is one of them, whether Mulgrew stays or goes or whether Efe really is a target for a German club or the story yesterday was just a Monday morning tease to get our hopes up.

Today Stefan Johansen is linked with a move away. I would shed no tears if he left and I suspect I’m not alone. Nir Bitton is supposed to be coveted by Spanish clubs and a fee of £6 million has been mentioned in some of the press. It seems low. On his game he can be highly effective; the trouble is, I still don’t know (and I don’t think anyone else does) what his natural role is, as Ronny tried him in so many different positions over his two years.

He’s clearly not the holding midfielder I thought we’d signed, but if the intention is to play him further up the park, or as some kind of playmaker, then he needs to start fitting into that slot quickly. He has a huge talent and the physicality to be a top performer but right now, he doesn’t do enough to merit keeping. The need to start blending this team is urgent. There’s no such thing here as undue haste. His slot in the team could – and should – be taken up by Stuart Armstrong who can be our midfield engine for the next six or seven years if he’s utilised properly. He’s the natural replacement for Brown.

Paradoxically, the midfield areas is the one where the biggest transfer rumour continues to arise; that of Joe Allen being targeted. Talk from south of the border that Allen is going to cost £14 million is ridiculous, frankly. We won’t spend near that and as good a footballer as he is we shouldn’t either, not for that area of the pitch.

Stories about Scott Sinclair flared and faded. Tales about Shane Duffy appeared and then silence fell. I know Celtic does its business below the radar, and that’s a good way to be. It stops you suffering humiliation like Sevco has endured this window.

But fans crave signs of life and that big countdown clock continues to tick.

The signing deadline for the first Champions League qualifiers is on Friday.

Our transfer business appears, as ever, to be wearingly slow. Some might even call it dangerously slow. There are some lessons people just don’t get learned the first time, and that’s part of human nature. But to fail on the same front time and time and time and time again … that’s just unforgivable.

Whatever the delays are, Celtic … time to get them sorted.

The fans have done their bit.

The club now has to deliver on all the promises made.

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