There are ten days of the transfer window left.
What have we done with the three weeks that have already come and gone?
Signed one player, and there’s another on the way.
But for a lot of our fans the sum of it all has been distinctly underwhelming.
It is tempting to do as I have, and look at the raw numbers; once Soro is confirmed as being signed and delivered we’ll have spent around £5 million on players. This means we’ve spent considerably more than all the other clubs combined … and that’s not something to simply dismiss as if it were nothing.
It’s definitely given us more options.
Yet neither of these signings delivers what fans – and what Lennon – wanted from the window, which was a “wow” factor.
None of them has generated the same buzz as signing a Wanyama, even on loan, would have. It’s tempting too to read Lennon’s comments about wanting to bring a certain amount of experience in and wonder what happened to that idea.
There are some who will argue that the board is working away behind the scenes and that in terms of what they’ve delivered that they haven’t done too badly. I pay no heed, for example, to those who have written of Klimala as a player without anything to offer in the here and now; dismissing a player who they haven’t properly seen strikes me as the height of arrogance and totally misplaced from folk who, to the best of my knowledge, aren’t employed as scouts.
On top of that, only fools are not aware that we play in a highly restricted football environment where there’s nowhere near the kind of money that sloshes around the leagues in England, Italy, Spain Germany, Holland and France. We need to be careful, and we cannot afford to buy the finished article no matter what some people seem to believe.
But all of that does not change the fact that real doubts exist here.
The board needs to know that there is a section of the Celtic support – a large and growing section – which has no faith in them at the current time. As far as I’m concerned, Lennon has done his job brilliantly so far but he can only work with the tools at hand, and it’s their job to provide him with what he requires.
He has set out what it is he says he needs … they must deliver it.
We play Kilmarnock away tomorrow night, and the first team will be no stronger going into that game than it was when the window opened. I’m not saying they’ve wasted three weeks, but we should be far better prepared for that match than we are.
Does this board want to win this title? Do they want to be seen to have publicly backed the manager? Do they want to take the bow on the day we secure the Ten or do they want to go down in history as the directors who had it in their grasp and let it go?
Here’s the truth; no matter what they do here, there are many who will blame them if we fail, no matter how much ambition they’ve shown. But they are making it easy for their critics at the moment by providing Lennon with two “project players” when what the manager asked for, and requires, are players who have experience and know how to fight.
I am pleased to see that we’ve bought a striker and a holding midfielder.
But I cannot, and will not, ignore the fact that Lennon has asked for a specific “type” and they have not yet delivered.
I’m just not sure that they’ve grasped the seriousness of their own position. It is tremendously important that they understand how they are perceived at this moment, and I really genuinely don’t think they do. They need to wake up, and provide for Lennon big time.
It isn’t too late.
But we have a hard slog through the months of January and February and into March too, and failure is not an option.
The countdown clock is ticking away in the background.
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