Celtic Fans Need To Start Challenging The Club On This Dire Transfer Window RIGHT NOW.

Erik Knott of Read Celtic put up a piece today on the transfer window which I read and agreed with in every way.

His question about whether it was set to go down as the worst in our living memory is a thought that every single one of us has harboured over the last week or two. Every single one of us. If you say otherwise, I’m going say you’re deluding yourself.

He got some stick from Celtic fans for that article. I am astonished at that.

We are now less than a fortnight from the start of the new campaign. We are materially weaker as a team than the one which finished last season.

But for an Ibrox late season slip and the manager coming up with a tactical shift and ditching completely every player he didn’t think he could depend on, we would have lost the league and maybe the cup as well … this is a reality which a lot of people have failed to internalise. Last summer was a disaster. Worse was the window in January which left key areas of the team untouched and which we as a club could have paid a high price for.

Over and over again, this board fails to deliver to meet the needs of the manager.

Over and over again. This is not an unusual state of affairs. But it is an inexcusable one.

We are sitting right now with tens of millions in the bank, a sum greater than any we’ve ever had as a club, and as it stands, we’ve not signed a single outfield player and we can boast a transfer spending surplus. To put it into context, the club at Ibrox which everyone accepts is skint has outspent us in the transfer market. Anyone who thinks that’s not untenable needs to pull their head out of wherever they have it and get real here.

It’s time to wake up to exactly where we are at this moment in time; gambling with this league title, throwing aside any prospect of improvement in Europe and hoarding money to no benefit whatsoever as the team on the park deteriorates.

The biggest transfer story surrounding our club right now is about the sale of Matt O’Riley, an act which will further weaken the starting eleven to do nothing more than throw more cash on the pile.

What is that cash for? I keep hearing about some future infrastructure project, probably this suggestion to extend our rail seating area.

I know this is a big deal for some of our supporters, but you know what? It would be a scandalous misallocation of resources if it comes, as it would at this point in time, at the expense of the team on the pitch.

Fans don’t pay to watch other fans. They pay to watch Celtic.

If this club decides to do that rather than put a quality product on the pitch then it will be an absolute scandal, and a clear signal that the people running Celtic are fresh out of ideas and harbour no ambition for us whatsoever.

You know who else loves big infrastructure projects? Failed regimes and political charlatans. There was nothing Boris Johnson liked more than something large and shiny and expensive that he could stick his name on.

There is every chance – every chance – that this transfer window will go the way of previous ones, and end with us scandalously under-resourced and the manager frustrated and unhappy and forced to work with footballers who shouldn’t be near our starting eleven.

Those who aren’t getting this and who refuse to take this seriously keep throwing a single question at the rest of us; “is the window closed yet?”

They seem to believe – in spite of literally years of historical precedent which fully justifies our concerns – that a rash of signings will follow which will answer all our concerns.

We’ve been hearing this for a long time but only the first year under Ange Postecoglou has bucked the trend and delivered, and you don’t need me to tell you that this was the only year in our recent history where there was not someone called Lawwell over-seeing the transfer policy and second guessing the needs and the wishes of the manager.

Do I believe this club will deliver in this window?

I no longer think so, no.

They’ve dragged their feet for this long, and I don’t see any hopeful sign that they will not continue to do it, and here’s where I’m willing to speculate. I don’t think they want to do it. I don’t think they want to deliver for Rodgers. I think that there’s some second guessing of his ideas going on and I think there’s some pique that he doesn’t want to play the sub-par players they bought last season and thought he’d make do with.

There might even be some anger at the way Mark Lawwell left, and Rodgers might be the guy that people blame for that, and so I genuinely think that in many ways this is a calculated snub to him, at the expense of the team, at the expense of the fans.

Brendan Rodgers and Kasper Schmeichel just sat down with the media this afternoon and although there were questions about Matt O’Riley there was not one question about the current transfer policy or what other signings might be brought in. The one question everyone wanted asked, and to know the answer to, wasn’t asked at the presser … did the hacks just take the afternoon off or did the club and/or the manager tell them those questions were off the table?

Either way, isn’t that a bad sign all on its own?

Even if I’m wrong, I still don’t believe this window is going to deliver for us, not right now, not at this moment, not with the way things are. There are only two things which are going to move the needle here; the first is if the manager lays down the law and puts it to them that he won’t accept whatever is going on and is willing to blow the roof off the place.

The other way is if we, the fans, make our voices heard, loudly and forcefully and right now.

If you want to wait until the window is just about shut you’ve played right into their hands. If you want to do your complaining when its over, knock yourself out but you’re pissing in the wind because at that point any power you had to influence the outcome is gone.

If you’re not speaking up and speaking out and making yourself heard on this right now, this minute, you risk letting this manager twist in the wind and you yourself are in some way gambling with our season. Because these people will not do it unless they are sufficiently motivated to do it and nobody is more able to provide that motivation than we are.

To be blunt, some of them should not have lasted this long.

Fans put the club first and decided to focus on backing the team in the latter part of last season, and that was almost certainly the smart thing to do at the time, although I am not convinced at all that it was the right thing. But you cannot look at this summer and still believe these people have a plan to take us forward.

For whatever reason, they are stuck in the mud and so is this club.

And until our supporters get serious, that’s exactly how things are going to stay. So, it’s make your choice time. Our job from now until that window is closed should be to pressure these people every minute of every day and make damned sure they deliver.

Or you can sit and wait. And hope. And pray. And be disappointed.