On Jota, Celtic must move beyond despair, to acceptance … and then a solution.

So, I think we’ve just had the news we didn’t want—and it’s much worse than even the worst-case scenarios could have imagined, in a shocking example of what I wrote this morning about failures of imagination on that score.

Jota is going to be out not for weeks, but for months. And not just a couple of months, either—somewhere between six and nine. He’ll be back next season, but not any time soon. We’ll be lucky to see him in a Celtic strip at any stage this year.

Before I even start, I want to say that on a human level I feel terrible for the guy. He’s had a really bad time of it this past year and a bit, and coming home was the high point for him. He must be devastated. Best wishes to the lad and I hope he’s back on the shorter end of the estimate for his sake as well as for ours.

Now, this does create a rather sizeable issue for us as a club.

This is obviously horrible, but it doesn’t need to be a disaster. What it does is change the summer transfer plans somewhat—and perhaps radically. It certainly reshapes what the manager was hoping to do in the close season.

I know that for a lot of people, the first emotion is going to be anger.

But anger at who? Anger at what? This isn’t something you can plan for. It’s one of those things that just happens—a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. The only thing you can do is hope he’s back on a much more expedited timeframe than expected. But as I said in this morning’s piece on denialism, there’s no harm in hoping for the best—so long as you’re prepared for the worst.

What this means is that, whether the board likes it or not, we’re now going to have to spend more in the summer than we otherwise would have. We need to replace Jota on the wing. And not just sign a replacement for him, but bring in another winger as well to meet the manager’s other plans.

We’re in a privileged position, financially. Because we now have a timeline, we can start to put solutions in place. And one of the things we might have to do, at least in the short term, is think smart. Jota is not out indefinitely—it’s a long-term injury and he may miss the whole of next season, but he will return. If this injury is nine months it’s doubtful we’ll see him fully fit before the end of the campaign, but he will come back.

So, if we’re replacing him on the wing, it seems to me we should be looking for a 12-month loan rather than a permanent transfer. It’s a stopgap, but sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do. And we have to hope that medical science—and the player himself—gets him back by the turn of the year.

It’s not inconceivable that he could play a role in the team by Christmas. But knowing the possibilities it is now time to be thinking about those worst-case scenarios. We have to plan on the assumption that we won’t see him all season. And if we don’t want to shell out for a permanent player, then a loan makes good sense.

There is another option, of course: move Daizen back to the left-sided attacking role. I don’t believe that’s a bad idea at all.

In fact, it might be a very good option. It may well be the route we explore—and that, of course, resurrects the question of whether we should be going out to sign a striker.

If we move Daizen wide left, we’ll need to. That reopens the door to a deal for Kvistgaarden, or someone in that mould.

The fact we’ve got lead time on this is something to be grateful for.

We’ve got what’s left of this season and the early summer to make the right decisions. We’ve also got the financial flexibility to fix it. And that’s exactly how we should look at this. Anger and despair don’t get us anywhere. This is just a problem. A big one, yes—but a problem that can be solved.

Those at Celtic have had a couple of days now to process the shock and start thinking about the solution.

We, who are just hearing this, we’re all entitled to take a while, to feel this really hit home. But inside Celtic, that phase is over. Now it’s about forward planning and hard thinking about how we’re going to fix it.

We do have time to put a plan in place. But not much of it. By God, Celtic, we cannot, and must not, waste a second of it.