Celtic’s Team Building Philosophy Is So Far Ahead Of The One Across Town.

The word “wow” is being bandied around a lot online. I agree. This is a “wow” moment in our recent history, but not for the reasons many of the supporters across the street seem to think. It is the day when the modest level of sanity which appeared to have come over them has been cast aside in favour of embracing madness all over again.

Yes, my reaction to it is “wow.” As in “wow, do these lunatics never learn?”

The signing of Aaron Ramsey will certainly make headlines. It will certainly appease a support which had started to ask real questions about the club. It will satisfy those who are easily seduced by glitz and bling. It will calm the fears of those who think “ambition” is represented by a last-ditch panic measure involving a famous name.

They have learned nothing. They are incapable of acting in a rational manner.

Let’s, for a moment, examine the numbers we’re talking about here.

Juventus wants this guy off the wage bill, but they won’t let him go for nothing. There are some nonsensical reports about Ibrox paying a mere 5% of his wages; does it sound even remotely likely that the Italians would let him leave at that cost, and still pay almost his entire salary? Even if that’s true, is it still rational when the loan fee, for just four months, is reputed to be in the region of £2 million? Does any of this make sense in a sane world?

Let’s crunch the numbers here, shall we?

And in doing so, let’s err on the side of caution; let’s say he’s on the lowest estimated wage of £130,000 a week. Juventus won’t let him leave unless Ibrox is paying a significant chunk of that. How significant? Imagine Juventus are willing to swallow a 40% reduction.

That leaves Ibrox having to make up a whopping £60,000 a week plus, and this is before the loan fee is even mentioned. Err on the side of caution again; imagine the loan fee is a quarter – not even half but a quarter of the mooted sum. £500,000 … for four months. That’s the equivalent of another £100,000 a month – an additional £25,000 per week – on top of the wages.

If the loan fee is £2 million – as has been reported – then that’s a half a million quid for every month he’s at the club … £125,000 a week, nearly the equivalent of his entire Juventus salary.

Even if they aren’t taking on any of his wages … that’s insanity.

There is simply no scenario in which this isn’t costing that club a fortune.

And for what? A one time Arsenal prodigy but who’s injury issues and lack of form have put off every club in the most cash-rich league in Europe, including Newcastle who balked at his salary demands.

Newcastle. Make of that what you will.

If you were sane, and knew what you were about, you could sign a player – actually go out and buy one – for that sort of money.

And we should know because we’ve done it.

Both Matt O’Riley and Reo Hatate cost us less than what Ibrox is going to throw at a 31-year-old player, on a short term deal, who hasn’t kicked a ball since November.

These guys are our own players, they are young and talented footballers we can develop … these aren’t bling signings, this wasn’t Sky Sports Scouting.

They are guys the manager knows well, bought very deliberately to fit his style and system, not only as credible first-team players who have made a big difference in the here and now, but as investments in our future.

Hatate is 24. O’Riley is 21.

That’s how you build a squad.

You do it for the long term, you do it with bigger goals in mind than appeasing a rabid fan-base and generating some cheap headlines.

For anyone genuinely worried about what that club would do with a Champions League bounty, well this is the answer.

They would piss it against the wall.

That club loves the big headline.

They are addicted to the sugar rush where they pig out for a while on supremacist guff and the applause of a compliant media who never stops to ask if any of what they are doing makes even the most rudimentary sense.

Celtic, by the way, tired of this kind of thing a long time ago.

Expensive lessons like Roy and Robbie Keane, Juninho, Ljundberg, Ian Wright and Thomas Gravesen were enough to convince us that this was a crazy road to go down. For too many of these guys Scottish football and the ferocity and pace of it are the hardest test their weary legs get in their careers.

The talking heads will have their say on this, and gibbering idiots will write gushing fan-boy nonsense about how this changes everything. We’ll know in due course, but I suspect there’s a sting in the tail and it won’t take long for it to show itself.

For all that, the clown cars are already spilling out and plenty of folk are giving their opinions on this, with many claiming it’s a stroke of genius because they underestimate the game here and think it’s easy to come up and have an extended holiday, strolling about the Scottish league as if you’re a world beater.

It rarely turns out that way, as they should recall.

This doesn’t impact on us one way or the other, so ignore any pitiful nonsense that it does.

If they throw him into the game against us on Wednesday that will be a staggeringly stupid act that could backfire spectacularly as there’s no way he’s anywhere near fit enough.

So this will come down, for a while, to him keeping someone else out of the Ibrox midfield, trying to get up to speed playing against the other clubs. And we’re not talking here about EPL grounds with immaculate surfaces or the balmy heat of Turin, where teams give “ball players” all the time in the world to do their thing.

This is kick and rush, blood and thunder football on rainy nights on muddy fields, and if he survives that he has the SPL’s dreaded plastic pitches to look forward to.

Yeah, it’s one Hell of a gamble, and an expensive one at that, with a lot of money riding on the outcome.

The press will call it a game-changer, but they are howling at the moon.

This is a colossal risk, and one unlikely to succeed.

Sevco are betting big, but the casinos were built on this, by the crazy antics of mad bastards coming in and throwing down the house payments on red or black.

In the meantime, we’ve added value and talent to our team in the last two windows, doing a proper strategic, well-thought out rebuild which will be paying dividends for many years to come.

That’s how to do a successful transfer window; Celtic has built something to last.