Celtic suffers a transfer blow that neither our media or rivals should ignore.

Today we experienced a bit of a blow. And it’s a blow that should be instructive for our media. Not that they’ll see it that way. It should also be instructive to those across the city who think that this summer is going to be a bright new dawn for them. It isn’t. And the fact that we’ve taken a hit today proves it.

The hit we’ve taken is not even all that bad. It’s that Luis Palma is coming back to Celtic because Olympiacos don’t want to exercise their option to buy him.

Now, this is partly about money. Olympiacos are not the richest club in the world, and they don’t have a lot of it to throw around. They’ve simply taken a pass on the guy. That’s fine. But the fact that they’ve decided not to buy an obviously talented footballer — either because they can’t finance it properly or because he doesn’t fit into their overall plan — is an indication of how difficult the act of selling players really is.

I never cease to be amazed by the way the media makes this sound easy. Especially when it comes to the Ibrox club and selling players — something that they don’t do very well at all.

Even our club, with its big reputation and the success stories that we can boast of when it comes to selling players on, doesn’t always get it right when it comes to moving people out. A bunch of them are going to be back at Celtic Park in the summer. And if we want to really push the boat out, we need to move these guys off the wage bill.

Now, I still think that Palma will go.

I think he’ll go somewhere good. I think we’ll get a couple of million for him. I think we’ll move on Lagerbielke and a couple of other players who are currently out on loan. We’ll probably bring in a few bucks overall — but it’s not going to be easy to do. It’s not going to be as simple as just putting your players on the transfer list and then waiting for the offers to come in.

That’s not how it works, and it’s never been how it works.

It’s another example of how our media lives in fantasy land and total denial of reality. Every time you hear about a summer clearout at Ibrox, I roll my eyes.

Because you can’t just dump players overboard. These guys have contracts. Some of them have long contracts and some of them are on a lot of money. And sure, you can let them leave for free if you genuinely just want them off the wage bill and you don’t want to waste time trying to find buyers.

But even then it’s difficult, because if these guys are on big salaries and their agents want big signing-on fees, clubs are looking at them and thinking: “your team hasn’t won a league title in four years, your team struggles to lay any kind of glove on Celtic, and these are the guys you’re willing to let go? So these aren’t even your best — these are your cast-offs. Why would we want them?”

But every now and again, you’ll get an idiot like Tom English talking about how this will be a transformational summer and they’ll get rid of all their deadwood and bring in all these new players.

And you think to yourself, really? Get rid of all their deadwood? Some of this deadwood has been on the books for a long time. Some of these guys have failed to cut it in the Scottish Premier League. You’re not convincing a top-five league club to come in and take them off your hands.

There’s a lot of speculation, for example, surrounding Danilo. Now, Danilo cost them quite a substantial sum of money. And when they signed him, it was hailed as a stroke of genius and a big, bold, ambitious move. But when Feyenoord’s manager — the guy selling him — was asked how they were going to replace him, he said that he already had ample talent in the squad to step up and do the job.

And everyone who’s ever watched Danilo knows they must have been laughing to get £6 million for him. The French club Lens must be absolutely laughing at getting £4 million guaranteed for Oscar Cortes — a guy who hasn’t shown at all that he’s worth anything like that kind of money. Then there’s Berjami, who may be one of the worst players I’ve ever seen sign for their club for a big fee.

There is no disgrace in not being good enough to get into a Celtic team ahead of Daizen Maeda. That’s the truth of it with Palma.

Palma would have played a lot more games, except that Maeda is just so good. And other clubs elsewhere know that there’s no harm, no shame, in not being able to cut it in this Celtic squad — because this Celtic squad is full of really good players. That’s what makes it easier for us to sell players.

And if we’re struggling — and I’m not saying we are — then imagine how tough it will be for them. This is a blow. We were hoping that Olympiacos would exercise this deal and that would be one of our fringe players gone and a few bucks in the bank. I do think we’ll find a club for Palma, and I do think he’ll go. But it’s a headache we didn’t want, didn’t need — because his future should be settled.