Celtic needs players backed by the manager. After that, it doesn’t matter what they cost.

So, earlier today I talked about Jackson, of course—his ludicrous piece yesterday about Rodgers, and that jaw-dropping claim that the manager would complain if he were given £30 million and told he had to spend it on five players instead of three.

It’s one of the stupidest contentions I’ve seen in the recent history of the Scottish sports media—but it wasn’t the only dumb thing in that article.

Now normally I’d leave it at that and move on, but I bring it up again because Jackson’s other mad argument has been echoed elsewhere—on a couple of Celtic sites and forums—and I want to tackle it head-on.

This idea is that to show ambition, our signings need to be big-money buys… it’s so far from the truth it makes my head ache.

Yes, questions will be asked if we sign a lot of low-value players.

That’s natural. People will look to the manager and the board and wonder what the hell is going on. That’s a consequence of where we find ourselves, because of an ongoing perception problem—a very real one.

It wasn’t helped by the low-key start to this window. It wasn’t helped by us selling our top striker in January without replacing him.

The perception problem exists. It’s real. We’ve talked about it many times here on the blog. And it doesn’t matter what the club does at this point—it won’t just vanish. It’s not a phantom. If we’re perceived as more interested in profit than in strengthening the first team, that’s because the profit is visible—and so are the gaps in the first team. You can’t look at one and ignore the other.

That perception didn’t appear from nowhere. It’s a result of years of foot-dragging, lowballing, and small-time thinking from the people in charge of our club. It exists because they allowed it to exist. It really is that simple.

A board that doesn’t give the manager the backing he needs, or show the ambition he’s entitled to expect, is a board that isn’t on the job—or one that isn’t up to the job. And I’m not sure which of those is worse.

But for Jackson to suggest that our signings need to be expensive, that they need to be ‘blue chip’ as defined by their fee, is absolute garbage. And that’s why I’m not paying any attention to those already complaining about the imminent arrival of Yamada, just because he looks like a cheap signing.

It’s the same money we paid for Maeda. The same we paid for O’Riley. Yes, on the surface it looks bad—we sold Kyogo and might be replacing him with a £1.5 million player. But that’s not the player’s fault.

That’s the board’s fault, for creating the environment in which that kind of deal looks like a downgrade. If there are doubts, they’re not about the player—they’re about the ambition of the people running our club.

Judging a player on his valuation is nonsensical, to be honest.

Nygren didn’t cost a lot of money either, but most of us expect big things from him. I think we all believe we’ve signed a seriously good player there. And I’ve seen the clips of Yamada—there’s a lot to like, and at the end of the day, we’re sitting on two very good high value forward players already: Idah and Maeda.

Both have shown they can score in Scotland. Both have scored in the Champions League. So, when we talk about replacing Kyogo, we’re not necessarily talking about a £10 million man—we’re talking about someone who fits into the squad and helps deliver what the manager wants.

It might not be the answer some other people want. But they aren’t the architects who are responsible for building this team. If we can get someone who can do the job – and remember, the reason some players fail and some succeed is often about how and where the manager wants them to play – then what does the fee matter?

If we’re rotating three strikers—including Maeda—then we’ll need another two players on the left. That’s also reality and that has to be faced. A loan deal is permissible there because Jota will be back soon.

And let’s be clear: none of us are net spend obsessives. It would be good if, for once, the manager got to spend more than just what we bring in. It would be nice if we had a net spend this time.

The walls won’t fall down if that happens. And it’s been reported that we may be targeting two strikers anyway. That would answer a lot of questions. It would mean Maeda stays wide. It would mean that left-sided gap is less of a crisis, since we’d only need one player there instead of two.

It also raises the possibility of a tactical change this season. If we bring in two strikers, I think it’s more likely than not that Rodgers is toying with the idea of going two up front. That could be a major shift—and one of the best things we do this summer. It also means we’ll need the right kind of midfielder if we want to switch shape.

But here’s what it comes down to: the manager is the boss. He knows what tools he needs. While shiny new signings are nice, they aren’t essential. Ange had the core of a title-winning team after one window. The second window was about layering. It was about finding the right quality to take us the rest of the way.

No-one doubts that we got the decisions right, and the players who we brought to the club in that window did not cost us the earth.

So no, I’m not worried about the fee for the Japanese striker. I’m not even slightly concerned that we didn’t pay £8 million for Janssen and are instead targeting the boy at Antwerp. The problem with Inamura wasn’t the £300,000 fee—it was the lack of experience.

If we’re now going for experienced players at good prices, and they fit the blueprint the manager has laid out, we’ll be in great shape for the season ahead.

And while it’s fun to drool over big, expensive, headline-grabbing signings, some of the best players we’ve had at Celtic in the past decade didn’t cost much at all.

I’m willing to wait and see. I’m willing to give the club the benefit of the doubt—so long as the players we bring in are the ones the manager wants, and they fit the system he’s building. That’s what matters. Not the price tag.