Giakomakis and Kyogo are the past. Celtic must look to the future.

So, some interesting stories today, but from a Celtic point of view, one in particular caught my eye—the one about Giorgos Giakoumakis and how he’s advertising his availability and the possibility of a return to Celtic.

I think that’s so far from likely that it’s barely worth discussing rationally.

What never ceases to amaze me is the fixation a lot of people seem to have with us signing our ex-players.

I don’t expect ordinary football fans to have encyclopaedic knowledge of every player out there in Europe. I don’t expect our fans to know what the shortlists should look like, because we’re after specific types of players who fit into a specific system.

And if professional scouts don’t find it east to spot those guys, then the average fan watching Sky Sports isn’t going to be able to. But we need to have more imagination than this—and I hope our scouting system does.

Of course, part of the problem here comes from the fact that in the past 12 months, we have signed former players.

Hell, our club has gone out and hired the same manager twice, on two separate occasions, in the last 15 years. Jota is back in the building. Tierney will be back in the building very soon. That’s why rumours about Kyogo are so rife. It’s why there were stories about how we might go out and sign Starfelt in January. And now Giakoumakis is the latest name to pop up in the media.

But it’s unlikely. It’s unlikely verging on ridiculous. If we’re down to the point where we’re signing Kyogo and Giakoumakis—or even seriously thinking about it—then our scouting system has failed, and failed utterly.

The fact we weren’t able to turn up a good striker to sign in the January window is deeply disturbing. If we now go back to two guys who’ve already been at Celtic and couldn’t wait to leave, only to find that the grass wasn’t greener somewhere else, that would just be wrong. I’m not sure I’m a great fan of any of the names we’ve been linked with either although Strellic interests me more than Kvistgaarden does.

His profile is right, his club hasn’t messed us around, it doesn’t feel like the transfer saga has dragged on too long, and the pricing is realistic. I don’t think Brøndby are being anywhere near realistic about their player; one of the reasons the big Dane is still available is that they’re asking for too much money.

We allegedly spend a lot of money on scouting and analytics. We should have a list of three or four forwards who are affordable and fit into both the age and price brackets we’re looking at. And those players should be targeted immediately when the window opens. We should be trying to close at least one major deal early on.

If this is yet another deal for an ex-player, I think we’re all entitled to be pretty shocked. I wouldn’t just see that as a lack of imagination—I’d see it as an admission of defeat. It would be a sign that our scouting system isn’t working.

It would be a sign that something has gone badly wrong in more than one part of the club. I don’t feel particularly strongly about any of these links anyway.

Kyogo had gone off the boil before he left. Giakoumakis has a history of bouncing from one club to another in quick succession, and it was no great surprise to see him go as fast as he did—although I thought he’d wait until the end of the season rather than leaving mid-campaign.

There’s even talk about Odsonne Edouard doing the rounds again. I would completely rule that one out. It’s difficult to muster any enthusiasm for the idea, considering how his last few months at the club went and how little he’s done since leaving.

It just feels like we need to start from something new. The foundations we’re building on have to be freshly laid. It would be good to see the scouting team vindicated again. It would be good to see what they can produce.

That’s not to say we wouldn’t trust Rodgers if he came up with a name—because let’s be honest, if you don’t mention the fee we paid for him, Adam Idah proves that he knows what he wants.

As I’ve said before, Rodgers is an architect. He wants every player to play a specific role, and he won’t sign players who don’t fit into those roles. And if someone else signs players for him who don’t fit the roles he has in mind, then he won’t play them either—as Mark Lawwell found out to his cost.

Giakoumakis scored a lot of goals for us, and I liked him, but I wouldn’t have him back. Kyogo was a great player—one of the best forwards I’ve seen since the King of Kings himself—but I wouldn’t have him back either. It’s not just that they left. I want the next version of this team to be a different version. I want it to be an evolution. These would feel like backward steps.

There was a case to be made for Jota. There was a case to be made for Tierney. But I don’t see any case for bringing back these guys. I don’t see anything that would justify any kind of large financial outlay.

Even as moderately priced deals, I’m not convinced that either of them would be good enough to get into the Celtic team right now—never mind stay in it. Especially not if Rodgers intends to take us to that fabled next level.

He needs new tools to work with, and our club should be prioritising going out and getting them. Leaning into the past, that’ll do no good at all.