Celtic fans should forget John McGinn. This week should have given us closure.

A few days ago, Stephen McGinn gave an interview to a podcast, and one of the consequences was that we found ourselves revisiting the John McGinn debate once again.

Stephen McGinn, of course, is John’s brother. Although there were plenty of headlines suggesting he had some fresh insight into the transfer saga that never was, I didn’t hear anything particularly new or exciting in his comments.

I’m already familiar with the timeline of that whole affair and the behind-the-scenes shenanigans. For example, I was well aware that most of McGinn’s family believed he would sign for Celtic, but that expectation was based on a simple assumption: Celtic would get the deal done. As we know, that didn’t happen.

Many of us discussed the John McGinn saga during the last transfer window, when it was still relevant. We saw a familiar pattern emerging; our club taking too damned long to get stuff done. Celtic dragged their feet with his deal, allowing it to turn into a standoff between the club and Rod Petrie, the Hibs chairman, who is now president of the SFA.

Rodgers, who desperately wanted McGinn, was driven mad by Celtic’s dithering. He saw McGinn as a future midfield anchor for years to come. Nothing McGinn has achieved since has surprised me. He was a standout player then, and he still is now. He would have been a superb addition to the team, winning many honours and probably becoming a prime candidate for the captaincy.

I remember the day McGinn signed for Aston Villa well.

I was in a meeting with Peter Lawwell, and I left that meeting deeply concerned. It was clear to me that the relationship between Lawwell and Rodgers had broken down, and that McGinn was not going to sign for us. Sure enough, the news broke that very day. From that point on, I knew Rodgers was eyeing the exit, although I didn’t expect him to leave mid-season.

The McGinn transfer saga will forever remain part of Lawwell’s legacy, and deservedly so. We misplayed our hand. Petrie may have tried to squeeze more money out of us, but we foolishly assumed McGinn would wait a year to sign for us on a free transfer. The arrogance and naivety of that assumption are astounding. Nobody considered that McGinn might not want to wait, or that Villa could come in and swoop him up.

I’ve gone through phases of blaming Rod Petrie for the debacle, but I’ve spent even more time blaming Lawwell for his reckless handling of the situation. His decision to tell Hibs we wouldn’t make further bids was, in my view, what sealed McGinn’s move to Villa. Ultimately, we gambled that McGinn’s love for Celtic would make him wait, and we were wrong.

This week, for the first time, I’ve also come to an overdue realisation that McGinn played the really important part in this. He’s one of those players who has spoken about his deep affection for Celtic, but when push came to shove, he chose Villa and the lure of the English Premier League over the chance to play in front of a packed Celtic Park on European nights.

When we play Villa, there may be fans tempted to sing McGinn’s name because of his Celtic background. I hope they don’t. It would be a bit embarrassing, and I think many will agree, as it’ll likely be drowned out by boos from the rest of our support. There’s a certain justice in that.

While our strategy of waiting for McGinn on a free was foolish, it was based on the belief that his love for the club would outweigh any other considerations. But McGinn put his career and personal ambition first, and there’s no fault in that. We were just wrong to assume he wouldn’t.

So, while I’ve blamed Petrie, Lawwell, and others, it’s clear that McGinn had the agency here. He made the choice. And in the end, it’s probably time we stopped beating ourselves up about it. McGinn is a fantastic player, but he’s not worth the endless regret.

There were mistakes made on all sides, wrong and right all round, if you want to look at it that way. I understand McGinn’s decision; I understand that Rob Petrie didn’t want to sell his best player to an SPL rival for what his fans would have seen as an insulting sum. And I also understand that Peter Lawwell was, as ever, motivated by a desire to save as much money as possible while not allowing the club to be played for fools. I completely get why Brendan Rodgers was so furious about the whole thing, and about how the rest of that window unfolded.

At the same time, Lawwell’s misjudgement was next level embarrassing. Petrie got less for McGinn than he might have got from Celtic had been willing to talk to us in good faith; we had, after all, paid £4.5 million for Scott Brown and McGinn could easily have commanded that had Petrie not so obviously irked everyone at Celtic Park. McGinn himself could have fulfilled his alleged life-long dream and stayed at Hibs six more months and signed a pre-contract deal.

I can, as I said, see the arguments on all sides of this saga.

Stephen McGinn’s comments this week haven’t changed anything fundamental. They didn’t offer any new perspective, but they did make me feel like we can finally close the book on the whole saga. McGinn has done well for himself, and we’ve continued to thrive without him. He’s now playing in the Champions League, but we’ve won a raft of trophies since then.

Looking at the squad we have now, I wonder who we would have sacrificed to make room for McGinn. Would we have missed out on the brilliance of Reo Hatate or the development of Matt O’Riley? Would we have passed on signing players like Arne Engels or Bernardo?

Football is all about decisions like this. You win some, you lose some, but we haven’t done too badly from the road not taken.