Celtic Keeping This Squad Together Is More Than We Expected, But It’s Not Enough.

I welcome the news today that people inside Celtic are confident of securing the services of Abada and Hatate on longer term deals.

Added to those we’ve already got done, it would probably be more than we would have hoped for when this summer began. We thought some of these guys would go, in no small part because Postecoglou told us many would.

Neither has signed yet. That has to be pointed out.

There’s a long way to go here and with these guys in charge there is always a chance that they will make the mess of it anyway. The thing I’m pretty suspicious about is the timing … and with good reason.

If the window closes without us making game-changing signings, is this how they intend to win us over?

I wouldn’t be surprised if it is this and Tierney on a season long loan, costing us God knows how much which we could have instead partly spent on getting a player of our own. The fascination with this Tierney idea is baffling to me … but it’s dead easy to see them trying to tack this on to an utterly underwhelming window to make it look good.

Wasn’t it just a day ago we were getting told we couldn’t shop in the EPL market?

Except for an ex-player on loan of course. This is such an obvious move I can’t help but thing they must know that it’s obvious and will never fly … but this board is capable of it.

It would be great to get these guys signed up on longer deals – which doesn’t mean none of them will go next summer, we all know that – but we can just refuse to sell them in this window anyway and all we’re doing is making sure they are smiling about it.

What fans want to see are bodies in the door.

What fans want to hear is that we’ve made some new signings, not that we have kept players here instead of stuffing more money in the bank. The truth is, having sold Jota for big money which they haven’t spent these people know they cannot possibly sell anyone else and then not spend the money … it would tip fans over the edge.

But right now we’re treading water and fans want to see obvious improvements in this team, and the options available to the manager. Standing still is not making progress, even if you believe that we’re actually doing that and not going backwards.

It’s a positive. I will not deny it. I will be well happy if we can get these guys signed up on longer deals. But we absolutely need bodies in and good ones … and if today’s stories are true the manager has targeted no fewer than four.

If we get those in, the mood will be very different around here … and especially if one of the names in the papers today turns out to be right. Because that will be very interesting, and I’ll write about that one later on, time permitting.