The tale of two ex-Celtic strikers tells the same story and it’s a scary one.

When a player leaves Celtic Park, I’m usually fairly ambivalent about what happens next. However, a lot of fans clearly like to keep track. You only have to look at how many Celtic sites follow former players to see that. Everyone knows that Oh is doing well right now. He’s making an impact in Turkey after previously doing the same in Belgium.

Oh always had something about him when he was here. Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough. He never looked suited to our style of play. He never looked suited to the Scottish game. In truth, he was never going to make it at Celtic. The idea that we somehow lost a top player isn’t supported by the evidence.

We saw the evidence with our own eyes. We watched his performances. To suggest things would have been different is intellectually dishonest. It would have taken something close to magic for that to happen, and that’s exactly the word I would use. Magic.

It’s good to see him doing well. Clearly, he’s better suited physically to the leagues he’s played in since leaving. Good luck to him. However, there should be no regret at our end. If anything, there should be some puzzlement. Why did a player whose highest level was one season in the Korean League arrive at Celtic in the first place?

He was nowhere near ready for first-team football at Parkhead. Yet he was signed to replace Giorgos Giakoumakis, a player who arrived ready and proved it by scoring goals immediately.

This is where our transfer policy becomes difficult to defend.

Too often, we replace proven quality with project players. That approach costs us in more ways than one. We never saw the full value from Oh because we signed him far too early in his development. And why? Because Kyogo was already the established striker. There was no realistic pathway for Oh to develop properly while competing with a player the manager trusted completely.

As a result, whatever development might have happened never did.

This pattern repeats itself. The board takes risks on potential instead of bringing in players ready to contribute immediately. That very rarely works. When it fails, the squad looks weak. This season has exposed that weakness again. Too many summer signings were projects or punts. Very few have impressed.

Tounekti and Nygren look like they might offer something. But we badly needed a player who could put the ball in the net, and we desperately needed someone who could play out wide on the right. We never got the right sided attacker.

We did get the striker; Shin Yamada. He’s currently on loan in the lower levels of German football and can’t get games there. That should worry Celtic supporters. If that’s the level we’re recruiting from, the scale of the summer rebuild, which Paulina outlined this morning in all its horror, becomes even more concerning.

Let’s be honest. It was an insult to Ange Postecoglou to take Giakoumakis away and replace him with Oh. It was an even bigger insult to remove Kyogo and replace him with Yamada. The reality is simple. Yamada should never have been signed, and he will never play a meaningful role for this club.

If that’s the recruitment model we’re sticking to, then the people responsible should be nowhere near Celtic Park.

To be fair, in some ways we’re doing something different. We didn’t spend heavily, but we brought in experience. Players like Araujo and Sarrachi have played at big clubs and in big leagues. They look ready for this environment. Cvancara also looks more prepared than the alternatives up front. Oxlade-Chamberlain brings experience and leadership as well.

That matters. When you sign players who have already performed at a high level, you know what you’re getting. That’s far safer than gambling on raw potential and hoping it develops quickly enough.

Right now, we’re in a three-way title race. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because we didn’t do the work properly last summer. We didn’t bring in the level of quality this team needed.

Oh was never going to get a proper chance while more experienced strikers were ahead of him. Even when he played, he was still too raw to make a decisive impact. The same applies, even more clearly, to Yamada.

And the list goes on. Inamura barely played and never will. Simpson-Pusey arrived on loan and has contributed nothing meaningful. We made exactly the same mistake by signing the Brentford reserve. What good has that signing done us or the team? Those signings don’t strengthen the squad. They fill numbers without adding quality.

That’s the fundamental problem. There is a growing gap between what the team needs and what the board is prepared to provide.

Looking ahead, the scale of the summer becomes daunting. Six loanees may leave. Oxlade-Chamberlain might not stay. We need a new goalkeeper. There could be departures involving Engels, Hatate and Maeda.

That’s practically a full team. And even if we sign a full team, that’s merely to stand still. To end up in exactly the same place we are now, where there are still obvious holes in the squad.

That’s the real concern. The club continues to operate within rigid price and wage limits while prioritising projects over proven quality. That model carries serious risk. If it fails again, the consequences will be far more severe than a tight title race.

I’m genuinely worried about the summer.

Even if we win the league, the underlying problems remain; the ones at the top of the Celtic operation. Before this season ends, we need some clarity on two things; what the football model is going to be and who is going to run it.

As I have said right from the start, I don’t believe that we’re going to get clarity on either of those things until the season ends, at which point we will already be scrambling to make up the wasted time.