Celtic”s early transfer business should not be a cause for fans to be concerned.

There is an almighty amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth online today and as ever, a lot of it is focused on Celtic’s transfer business, which hasn’t even formally started yet.

Some fans are losing their minds over the Ross Doohan pre-contract. Others are throwing their hands up at the Jeffrey Schlupp story. To read certain corners of social media, you’d think we were putting together a Sunday League outfit rather than assembling a squad for a Champions League campaign. And it’s nonsense.

Part of this is a reaction to the cup final. I am no happier about it than the average fan is but I am able to look at the bigger picture to some degree and this really does not have all that much to do with that bigger picture at all.

Let’s start with Ross Doohan.

This is not a marquee signing. Nobody is pretending it is. But this is not a Schmeichal replacement we are being asked to accept either; Doohan is not going to be our number one next season. But he does serve a purpose—and a very important one at that.

The handwringing over this is entirely missing the point, which is that this is not about who starts between the sticks in big games. This is about who fills a seat on the European squad list.

UEFA rules are a pain in the backside. We all know this. They require clubs to name eight “locally trained players” in their 25-man squads. Four of those need to have been trained at Celtic for three years between the ages of 15 and 21. Those rules bite us every single year, and they limit what we can do in the market unless we plan smartly.

This is a smart signing. Doohan is a Celtic-trained keeper. He’s never going to displace a top-tier number one, but he doesn’t need to. What he offers us is flexibility.

He gives us another home-grown slot filled, which in turn gives us room to name more senior outfield players who otherwise wouldn’t fit into the squad. This is good housekeeping. It’s as simple as that.

He’s also younger than Scott Bain who is being allowed to leave on a free, and he’s clearly the guy who is being replaced here. This is an early start to a window in which we expect a lot of business done, and where I think more and more we have to use the Bosman market to our advantage where traditionally we have ignored it.

We should have done more of this already. The idea that we’re suddenly lacking ambition because we’re signing guys who fill a specific squad function is absolutely ridiculous. We need to be pragmatic as well as ambitious.

You build a squad with purpose, not just with headline-grabbing purchases.

It’s the same with Schlupp—again, you would think we were dragging him out of retirement. The guy is 32. He’s finished half a season with us and he’s a versatile, experienced player who could be a valuable utility man for us.

And the word “utility” is key here. He’s not coming in as a cornerstone of the new-look side. He’s not a centrepiece. He’s cover. He’s the kind of player who can fill in across multiple positions, someone who adds to the overall robustness of the squad without commanding a massive wage or transfer fee.

It’s also worth pointing out that the Schlupp move seems to be partly based on the idea that we might be bringing Kieran Tierney back into the fold but that the boss still wants an experienced backup; as regular readers know, that’s something I entirely agree with

Kieran quite a few games through injury. Anyone with eyes knows that if you’re planning to rely on him, you need proper insurance. Schlupp provides that. His kind of experience is a far better bet for us than going out and buying some project.

I wrote about our efforts to see the big lad from Holland; I am delighted we’ve been watching a guy over there who is available for free. I hope we intend to make more signings from the free transfer market in the next few weeks and months; why spend money you don’t have to if there is quality available cheap

I expect this to be a big window, perhaps even a transformational one. Our first three signings might all be free agents. If we sign the big striker that might be four out of four signed without spending a penny … I’d welcome that if we were showing that we’re smart enough to do some of our business like that.

Stephen Welsh is being allowed to move on. That’s another piece of the puzzle. He’s a Celtic-trained player, and so his departure opens a gap in the home-grown category. Doohan fills that gap. If you let Welsh go and don’t replace him with someone who ticks that box, you find yourself short in the European squad again. That’s when you get nonsense like naming fewer players than allowed. That’s when you start leaving senior pros out of the squad and weakening your chances.

So, again, this is just tidy housekeeping.

Doohan, in effect, is a like-for-like in the registration department.

He might never play a first-team minute, but he’s there to help you comply with the rules. It is also worth noting that big Kasper will move on next year and we’ve saved ourselves from having to go out and sign a backup for Sinisalo.

Schlupp is a just-in-case player who’ll probably sit on the bench most of the time unless Kieran goes out for a while. We have the luxury of already knowing what we’re getting with him and that’s the sort of experience that it would otherwise cost a fortune to buy.

The other thing worth saying here is that the real work—the work we all want to see—is still to come. These moves don’t define the summer. The window isn’t even open yet. We’ve not shifted the players who are on their way out. We’ve not touched the core of the side. This is pre-window activity. Admin. Filing. Early groundwork. This is what competent clubs do when they’re planning ahead.

We need to stop treating every single signing like it’s meant to be a world-beater. We need to stop reacting to every news item like it’s the end of the world or some dramatic turning point. Signing Ross Doohan doesn’t mean we’re not going to go out and get a proper first-choice striker. Signing Schlupp doesn’t mean we’ve given up on building a quality midfield. These are squad moves, not statements of intent.

We will see the statement signings in due course. Brendan Rodgers has made it clear that there are positions he wants to strengthen. We know there’s going to be change in central defence and midfield. We know the attack needs an injection of pace and flair. All of that will come. But you don’t build the house without first clearing the ground and making sure your foundation is solid.

That’s what this is. This is the clearing of the ground. This is the shaping of the squad so that we can do what we need to do when the window opens. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t make for sexy headlines. But it’s the kind of stuff that pays dividends in the long term.

The truth is that we’ve made mistakes in past windows by not doing this. We’ve left ourselves short of cover. We’ve failed to properly manage the squad list for Europe. We’ve signed players without thinking about the knock-on effects. So when we do get something right—when we quietly go about our business and make the smart decisions—we should be celebrating that, not sulking about the lack of fireworks.

Housekeeping isn’t glamorous, but it’s necessary. Doohan and Schlupp are not the big stories. They are the supporting acts. The show has yet to begin.

So take a breath. Trust the process. And remember that the real work starts in July.