Celtic On The Brink Of Completing Deal Number Two For January. By December.

The deal for the right back, Alastair Johnston, is almost complete and that means that Celtic will have done their first two major pieces of January transfer business by early December. That’s a real shift in our approach, and one most of us are enjoying.

I wrote earlier this week about the opportunity we’ve been afforded by the post-Brexit landscape, but even with our ability to sign young European players largely unencumbered, we continue to look further afield for our signings.

This is one from Japan and one from the MLS. That, too, is a real shift away from the marketplaces where we have traditionally done the bulk of our business. Everything at this club is operating on a different level than before, and that can only continue to benefit us.

More than anything else, it is just the speed and the efficiency with which we’re working right now that has caused the most surprise. Nobody, a year ago, thought that January would go so smoothly, except those who were working on the deals. This summer dragged in a couple of places, especially in tying up the signing of Jota, but even if we’d had qualifiers to play we would have been ready, and prepared, by the time they came about.

I have never seen a January window where two key pieces of business were done with a month until the window opened. The manager continues to work tirelessly to improve this squad and, perhaps more importantly, the board continues to back him.

This deal is worth a reputed £3.5 million. That’s not pennies, that’s a lot of cash, and we’re clearly not going to be shy about continuing to spend when the manager identifies somebody who he thinks can improve the team. As long as this continues, all talk of “closing the gap” is only more screaming into the wind. In fact, we could move further ahead.