Celtic are clearly hunting a striker. But it’s probably not a name in the media.

So, there’s a lot of talk in the papers today about strikers.

The big Danish striker at Brøndby, Mathias Kvistgaarden, is finally about to find a club. He’s Norwich City-bound. Norwich City in the Championship—not exactly the move he would have been anticipating, and not the move his club would have been hoping for either. But you know what? It’s exactly the sort of move that I and others in Celtic cyberspace predicted for him.

Some of us have never understood the hype around this guy. From the start, the noise was absurd—talk that Brøndby wanted an eight-figure fee? That was never realistic. He’s never done enough to justify a fee like that. Even his scoring record this season in the Danish league isn’t all that impressive. I always thought Brøndby were at it, trying it on, taking the piss trying to get that kind of money.

As I’ll discuss tomorrow, their strategy is one that’s failed for other clubs—and I think we all know which other club I have in mind.

You don’t just name your price and expect someone to meet it. Sensible clubs let the market set the value. They don’t just start slapping zeros on numbers that were reasonable to begin with. When Celtic first expressed interest, he was available for somewhere between £4 million and £6 million. Then Brøndby started hiking it up—and at that point, Celtic quite rightly walked away.

The press reported months ago that we’d pulled out of the deal, and that’s why I couldn’t understand how often his name kept popping back up. Celtic made our position clear. We weren’t prepared to pay what Brøndby wanted because we didn’t think he was worth it—and I agree with that completely. I never understood the fascination with this guy.

So, Norwich it is. Not the kind of club he, Brøndby, or his fan club in the Scottish media expected him to end up at.

There was talk of top clubs in Germany, France, and elsewhere. None of those clubs have come in with a bid Brøndby deem acceptable. And I’m quite happy to see Celtic among the clubs who refused to be fleeced.

David Strelec may still be a name we explore.

Apparently, he’s talking to Ajax—but we’ll see how that one turns out. If we had offered the £8 million in January, there’s no way we’d offer that now. His club knows they’ll be lucky to get anything close to that on the open market.

If Celtic think he’s worth it, then fair enough. I always thought he was the better of the two players anyway. He’s got the stronger scoring record, but that’s still a lot of money to spend.

It does now seem clear—based on Brendan’s recent comments—that a striker is a priority. And rightly so. Whether he wants to spend £9 million on one is another matter. But let’s not forget—we lost a £10 million striker when Kyogo left.

So, it’s not unthinkable that we’d spend a similar amount to replace him. I’m sure we’ve got more on the list than the same three or four names we always see trotted out every window.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin is the latest name to surface—and I’ve no idea where that came from. He’s available on a free. He’s a former Everton player. But he’s going to be on huge wages. There’s talk of Sunderland being interested, among others.

But Calvert-Lewin, aside from everything else, is injury-prone. It would be a massive risk to go for him, and I don’t believe we’re even in the mix.

Reports that “a Scottish club” are interested? That’s more likely to be the lunatics across the city than it is to be us. A 28-year-old, injury-prone, ex-Premier League player on big money? Doesn’t exactly scream “Celtic signing” to me.

So while we’re clearly working on something, I don’t think it’s anything that’s obvious or out there in the public domain yet. It might be the Japanese striker. Maybe Rodgers will sign off on that. Or it might be someone else entirely. But at least we know now—it’s not going to be Kvistgaarden. And I never believed it would be.

It might be Strelec—if Ajax don’t move first. They can outspend us, and we know it. But it’s not going to be Calvert-Lewin. Or Jamie Vardy. Let’s not be daft.

What we do know is that a striker is on the agenda. And it’s going to be very interesting to see how that story develops over the coming weeks. It has to develop over the next few weeks. This is not something we can afford to let drag into the end of August.