Jota should serve as the cautionary tale for anyone wanting to leave Celtic … or who might have offers elsewhere.

Whenever you hear Jota talk about Celtic, he does so with the most flowery praise. He speaks with genuine emotion—not just for the club and the fans, but for what he knows he lost and what he might never get back in his career.

Jota didn’t have to go. Nobody forced him out the door or pushed him toward the exit. He made a judgement call. The offer from Saudi Arabia was so lucrative, both for Celtic and for him, that when the club asked if he wanted to pursue it, there was no way he was going to turn it down. And I understand why he took that shot. I understand why he went to that footballing backwater to earn more money than he ever dreamed of.

But I knew he’d almost certainly hate it. I knew it wouldn’t appeal to him for long. I knew that sooner rather than later he’d have to find a way back to Europe—and that it wouldn’t be at the level a player of his talents deserves. Jota could and should be playing at the highest level, but he finds himself now in France, at Rennes. Although he was playing under a manager who liked him, that manager was recently replaced, and now he’s back to square one.

Some players don’t care about anything but the money. Some see the game purely as a way to pay the bills. Jota has never been one of those players. He cares about the game. He loves to play it, and I think the adulation of the fans is what truly moves him. But in this case, the Saudi offer was too much to turn down. But I suspect that he regrets it.

He clearly misses Celtic. He talks about the club all the time. I feel bad for him because of his current struggles. A part of him must think about what life would have been like if he’d stayed here a couple more years and left for a much bigger club.

That was all on the cards; it was all in front of him.

The one consolation he has is the money. He’s bagged life-changing cash.

The Saudis may have allowed him to leave, but he and his agent wouldn’t have gone without getting as much of that contract’s worth as they could. I’m sure they got the bulk of it. So yes, he got paid—and he got paid very well.

There’s a lesson in what’s happened to Jota for any player who wants to learn it—especially those on the fringes of Celtic, like Lennon Miller. When his opportunity comes, and I suspect it will, he’ll face the same choice: to chase the money or to come here, pull on the Celtic strip, and be a hero to our fans. He should ask Luke McCowan if playing for Celtic is everything he thought it would be. I’m sure McCowan will confirm that it is.

The same lesson applies to Daniel Cummings, who faces his own decision about the future, and to Greg Taylor, who may consider a final payday elsewhere but might also want to stay here, enjoying life as a Celtic player, winning trophies, and securing titles for a few more years.

For others, like Jota, it’s too late to turn back. Rocco Vata went to Watford against the advice of his agent—his own father. He claimed he wanted first-team football. Has he played much? He’s managed just 292 combined minutes so far. It’s not a complete disaster, but I can’t help but think he’d have played more had he stayed at Celtic. He could easily have been our second choice on the left or stepped up as a striker in certain games.

Daniel Kelly also thought he was leaving to better himself and his career. So far, he’s played 45 minutes in the League Cup for Millwall and 18 minutes in the league. He sat down with the manager here, who laid out a clear pathway into the side, promising he’d be part of the first-team squad.

If he’d stayed, I doubt we’d have signed Luke McCowan.

So no regrets for Celtic there—but I wonder if Kelly and Vata still think they made the right move. If their contracts expire and they’ve hardly played, what club will offer them the same terms again? That’s the gamble. That’s the risk they take.

And yet, a lot players continue to take that chance. They bet on factors they can’t control. I bet Vata and Kelly were assured they’d play more minutes. They were promised opportunities that haven’t materialised. If either of them had fully believed in their ability to break into the Celtic side, they may never have left. They face the same challenge now, far from home.

Their motivations were different from Jota’s, but when you consider how disappointed he is with life after Celtic, it should serve as a cautionary tale. Not just for those who’ve left and blown it but for those who might come here, get an option to leave, or are here now and think about moving on.

This is about mentality. It’s about hunger and desire. If your hunger and desire are for the wrong things, you won’t make it at this club anyway. But if you long to improve, to be better, and to be a hero in front of the best fans in the world, where else would you rather be?

Ask Jota how he feels now. Ask him how much he misses the place. I have no doubt he realises he’s lost something no amount of money will ever replace.