Celtic selling Maeda is easier to imagine than us re-signing Kyogo.

Yesterday, Paulina published her latest piece on Celtic’s transfer rumours. She fully intends to do a follow-up. But before she does that, let’s talk about two of the rumours that weren’t in her piece and which emerged after the article went up.

Before I get to them, we had a story suggesting that we’ve missed out on the free transfer lad from Telstar. I believe Paulina amended the article to indicate that he may be on the brink of signing for another club in the Dutch league. That’s not confirmed yet, but the rumour has taken on a more concrete shape.

Obviously, if it’s true that we were in for him, and it’s also true that he’s chosen to go somewhere else, then that’s a blow.

The truth is we may never know. If we were in for him, that might leak at some point. But the club will never confirm it, especially if he hasn’t signed.

Still, if he’s chosen to stay in Holland rather than take his chances with a club playing in the Champions League, it’s an incredibly poor piece of judgement. That’s why I’m happy to let that one go. Either we never wanted him or he’s shown that he lacks the ambition to take the big step onto the big stage. What a shame.

But more important than that rumour is the one suggesting we’ve inquired about bringing Kyogo back to Celtic Park. If that’s true, then I have to ask: what the hell are we playing at? That’s the last thing we should even be thinking about. And if it is something we’re considering as a club, then is it even worth us having a scouting department? Should we just go for a Matt O’Riley next?

The Kyogo story smells like nonsense, and I hope it is nonsense. It’s a lot of fumbling around for not very much gain. Yes, we know what Kyogo can do. Yes, he’d do a good job for us. So what? It’s not that long ago that he couldn’t wait to get out the door. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all she wrote. If he’s having buyer’s remorse—or whatever the footballer’s equivalent of that is—then too bad.

I bear the guy no ill will, but at least I understood why Jota left. At least I understood why Tierney went. Even why O’Riley chose to go. Kieran and Matt wanted to further their careers by playing in the English top flight. Jota left because the money was so ridiculous in Saudi Arabia that, as he put it at the time, it was “life-changing.” He couldn’t turn that down—and no sensible person would’ve.

Kyogo, on the other hand, went to the wrong league and to a club at the wrong end of that league, and I can’t see any footballing reason for it.

I’m not dead set against bringing players back but I don’t like it when we do it. I don’t think we should. But I’m not totally opposed. What I am dead set against is us operating like a charity for players with second thoughts.

Would we have benefited from having Kyogo available for the Scottish Cup Final? Absolutely. How much difference would he have made? We’ll never know.

All I do know is that to go out and try to re-sign him again would be an admission that we are officially out of ideas. Out of original thinking. Out of the development and improvement of players business. And doing what, exactly?

Because Celtic’s strategy in recent years—finding good footballers, turning them into great footballers and selling them for big money—has worked. Let’s be honest, it’s paid off. It’s won us a lot of trophies. And although it’s needed a few tweaks, those tweaks have been made. You don’t junk what isn’t broken.

The story about Maeda and the offer from Turkey is an interesting one as well.

I don’t know how much of it I believe, to be perfectly honest. I don’t believe for a second that our club opened negotiations with Fenerbahçe. But I do believe that if Fenerbahçe called and made that ludicrous £8.7 million offer that’s been talked about, we would’ve laughed them off the phone, told them to get real and come back with an actual bid before we’d even want to talk.

Are we looking at an asking price of 20-odd million? I’d say we have to be, at a minimum. What does it tell us about the player’s mindset and his willingness to sit down and sign a new contract? That’s not a question we can answer based on such scant information. The idea that the club has set a fixed price for the player is hard to believe, because he’s the kind of guy you could get an auction going for—and that could drive his price well above what you’d otherwise get.

I do know that at 27, his next contract has to be the life-changing one. It has to be the one that sets him, and he’ll give that proper consideration before signing anything. I don’t know that he’ll get more money in Turkey. I don’t know if that’s a move that suits him. I don’t even know if that club is the right fit for him.

Celtic has been good to Daizen, and Daizen has been good to Celtic. We got him for just over a million, and if we can sell him for north of £20 million after all he’s given us, that’s good business. If he doesn’t want to sign an extended deal and commit the next five years of his career to us, then I can see us looking for a buyer.

So it’s a waiting game, and we’ll be patient. We can afford to be patient. We have him on a deal for a couple more years, and there’s no real rush to force an answer—not that we could anyway. But we have to be ready to move if it turns out he doesn’t want to stay. We may keep him for another year regardless, and that might be the smart move.

But we may also decide that the time is right to cash in—and Rodgers, whether people want to acknowledge it or not, has been laying the groundwork and mentally preparing us for that possibility.

This will hang over the whole summer unless Daizen signs a new deal. Likewise with Nicolas Kuhn, who I believe the manager also wants to tie down on an extended and improved contract. If he doesn’t want to sign that, then the writing’s on the wall—and it becomes about choosing the optimal time to sell.

I’m comforted by one thing: the amount of money Ange got to spend from sales, and the amount Brendan has had to spend from sales. It’s been substantial.

One single sale could fund a whole window of spending—and it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. If we do our job right, and we go for the right calibre of player, we’ll emerge stronger for it.

Yes, we can survive the sale of a Nicolas Kuhn. It doesn’t mean I want to try it. We can survive the sale of a Daizen Maeda. I’d like that even less.

But so long as we replace them properly I would be okay with it, and there would be so much money generated from the sale of either one that we’d be able to do more than just replace them—we’d be able to buy at least another two first-team players.

But there can be no question—none at all—of selling key players and not bringing in like-for-like replacements.

If we sell quality, we have to buy quality. One way or another, we have to come out of this window stronger than we went into it, or real questions are going to be asked. And the manager will be asking them even if we’re not.

The sale of someone like Daizen I can actually see. The re-signing of someone like Kyogo would be almost incomprehensible.

That ship has sailed. And whatever direction it’s going in, we should just let it keep on sailing. It’s an idea that holds no appeal whatsoever for me—and I’m sure very little for anyone else at the club.

It’s not even clear that he fits particularly well into Brendan’s system. He’s a fine player, no doubt. An excellent technical footballer. But he’s yesterday’s news.