We might learn a lot about Celtic’s future strategy from what happens in this window.

Last night, the Trinity Tim’s team and I put up our latest podcast. One of the topics we discussed at length was the transfer window. I said I’m cautiously optimistic, but this club has given me plenty of reasons in the past to doubt that we’ll be terribly excited about how it plays out.

But later, it dawned on me that I didn’t say something I should have.

We’ve seen some of the transfer rumours circulating, and while I’m not going to address any specific one—because, as I’ve said before, I don’t like transfer rumours and try not to engage with them—most of these links have been with players who would cost us a significant sum of money.

Ironically, this is one of the reasons I’ve been inclined to dismiss these rumours; I don’t think we’ll spend big on any one player in this window. But the persistence of these stories does make me wonder if we might be considering exactly that. If we do spend a significant sum, the question then arises: what does it mean? What does it signal about our future direction?

Following this club over the years has taught us to be wary of big-money stories, simply because we’re not used to seeing them come to fruition. That’s why the summer window felt so significant towards its end—we did spend considerable sums, and on three players in particular. In fact, it was actually four if you include Paulo Bernardo, which we probably should.

Bernardo cost £4.5 million. Austin Trusty set us back £6 million. Adam Idah, as we know, cost £9 million, which would have made him the club’s record signing—except that we then spent £11 million on Arne Engels.

Most people were willing to give the board a pass over the length of time the deals took when you consider how much money was actually spent, and the fact that it had been spent on what we perceived then was a higher quality player. The results of that spending have seen us have a truly excellent start to the campaign.

So if we now go out and spend £5–6 million on a winger in this window—or even more, as some rumours suggest—what does that indicate?

It suggests that perhaps the summer wasn’t a one-off. It might not be the same as spending heavily on four players in a single window, but it could signify a shift towards signing higher-calibre footballers.

Now, I know there are some in the Celtic fanbase who question the wisdom of spending £5–6 million on players regularly.

They argue it’s not an efficient use of resources, as they believe those players won’t fetch multiples of the transfer fee in resale. It’s the usual. I wonder why they don’t follow accountancy firms on Bloomberg instead of following a football team. Their thinking, of course, is nonsensical. Every time we think we’ve hit the ceiling on what a player at Celtic Park can sell for, someone comes along and spends more.

If we sign a £6 million player, why can’t we turn them into a £30 million player? Starting with a higher-quality signing naturally gives you a higher potential ceiling. This is just common sense. Look at clubs like Ajax, or those others in Belgium and the Netherlands, who routinely sell players for astronomical sums. They don’t just develop talent from scratch—they also spend significant money on those players initially.

So, if we go out and spend a sizeable fee—whether high seven or low eight figures, as some of these rumours suggest—then I have to think something fundamental has shifted at Celtic Park. It would indicate that we’re now targeting higher-quality players, and that can only mean good things for the club’s future.

Of course, the shadow this casts elsewhere will be significant and substantial. Their fans simply aren’t prepared to accept an austerity regime as it is, but if it’s combined with their having to see Celtic routinely signing players in the £6–7 million range, the pressure on their own board will intensify.

This window, then, has the potential to be significant. It might offer a glimpse of the club’s future transfer policy. The summer was either a one-off aberration or the start of a new strategy. At the moment, we have no way of knowing.

But if we come out of this window having made a significant signing, it will start to look more like a deliberate policy shift than just a single summer of splurging, and that is a pattern we could all get very used to, and be very happy doing it.

Photo by Sanjin Strukic/Pixsell/MB Media/Getty Images

The latest Trinity Tims podcast is out now! We called this one The Bumps In The Road.

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