If The Mooch Is Planning His Team Right Now, Celtic Fans Have Nothing To Fear.

The Mooch is talking about his rebuild. And yes, he’s calling it that again. A rebuild. He’s also talking about selling players. Who does he have in mind? Well, that’s hardly a secret is it? We talked about this yesterday. He wants to punt Hagi. He wants to punt Kamara as well presumably. They are the only saleable assets in the squad. They are desperate for cash.

But in the main, the work is already underway he says. That means free transfers or players on the cheap. How do we know this? Because without knowing if there will be takers for the players he’s going to punt – and without knowing if his out of contract players will get clubs – his planning is being done on very little promised money.

Celtic’s will be well funded. Group stage qualification almost certainly assured. Money left over from January. We don’t have £12 million to find to make two loan deals permanent either, which means that we should have a tidy kitty even before any possible player sales. We also have a settled squad of champions now. That will be important.

All the talk from Ibrox – which contradicts itself at every turn – about them not needing a major shakeup has been tossed aside by the guy who said it, a guy who is now promising a minimum of five summer signings. On what budget? If it’s true that their striker target is Josh Maja, available for free, I think that sums up how pitiful their planning is.

Maja, who I will do a fuller piece on if he signs over there, has been described as some sort of wonderkid. He is a decent lower-league scorer and that’s about it. There’s nothing to fear for us from them signing players such as this.

There is nothing for us to fear anyway. In order to be ready for the European qualifiers – which for the second year running we don’t have to worry about – they will have to work fast and work well and every single player will have to fit in and be a hit.

We know what that sort of rebuild looks like, and we did it with money and with a man as smart as any who has ever done a job like that at the helm. Can they say the same? The Mooch has never, in his career, been in a position like this … and he’s blowing it already by over-promising and writing cheques that his club perhaps can’t cash.