Nicolas Kuhn back to Celtic? For God sake, can’t we move forward?

There is a suggestion doing the rounds that Celtic might go to Como and pay the “knockdown” £10 million fee for Nicolas Kühn.

On the surface, you can almost understand why that idea appeals to some people.

He’s a known quantity. He’s worn the shirt and he has produced moments. There’s familiarity there, and in uncertain times, familiarity can feel like safety.

But step back from it for a second. What are we actually talking about here?

We are talking about a club that is struggling to define its future, potentially spending a significant sum of money to bring back a player who has already been part of the system that is currently underperforming. That is not forward planning. It is looking backwards.

And, of course, this chatter is not an isolated idea either.

Before I go on, this isn’t going to happen. The idea that our club is going to spend £10 million on a single player without a push from a top class boss – and we will not get one of those – is beyond ridiculous.

But this is being discussed on some forums and on some sites as though it were a serious prospect.

And in some ways it’s not totally daft … because Celtic might actually have attempted this if the transfer fee were half as low again.

We know that the club explored bringing Kyogo back in January. A move that, at the time, felt completely mad. Not because Kyogo is not a quality player, but because the logic behind it said everything about where the club’s thinking is right now.

When things get difficult, when clarity is lacking, when direction is uncertain, the instinct appears to be to go back to what we know. Go back to players who have done it before. Go back to familiar faces. Return to something that feels safe rather than something that might actually move the club forward.

That is not strategy. That is insecurity. And yes, there is a psychological element to it.

Because what you are seeing here is something very simple.

It is risk aversion. It is a fear of getting it wrong again.

When Celtic has made a series of poor recruitment decisions, when it has spent money badly, when it has brought in players who have not worked, the natural reaction of those making the decisions is not to become bolder. It is to become more cautious. More conservative.

More inclined to choose the option that feels proven, even if that “proof” belongs to a different moment, a different context, a different version of the team. That is how you end up revisiting old ground instead of breaking new ground.

But football does not reward that mindset. Football moves quickly.

Players change. Teams evolve. Systems shift. What worked before does not automatically work again, especially not when the environment around it has changed. Kühn, in particular, is an interesting case. He is a good player.

There is no point pretending otherwise. He has qualities. He can contribute. But the idea that bringing him back somehow solves anything is flawed.

Because the problem at Celtic right now is not a lack of familiarity. It is a lack of identity. It is a lack of clarity in how the team is supposed to play, in how players are supposed to be used, in how recruitment is supposed to support the manager.

Dropping a familiar face back into that does not fix it. It just delays the real work that needs to be done. The same applies to the Kyogo idea. That was not about improving the team.

That was about recreating a version of the team that people remember more fondly. A version that, in their minds, made sense. A version where roles were clearer, outcomes were better, and everything felt more coherent.

It is nostalgia. And nostalgia is powerful.

Supporters feel it. Decision-makers feel it. Everyone feels it when things are not going well. You look back to a time when they were and you think:

“If we could just get that back…” But you cannot. Football does not work like that. You do not rebuild by retracing your steps. You rebuild by learning from them. That is the difference. That is what Celtic never, ever seems to do.

And right now, there is a growing sense that the club, and parts of the support, are falling into the same old trap. The idea that the answer lies somewhere in the past, waiting to be rediscovered. But the real answer lies in making better decisions going forward.

Better recruitment. Better alignment between manager and squad.

A clearer understanding of how the team is supposed to function. That requires courage and clarity and it requires a willingness to take risks, to back your judgement, and to move beyond what is comfortable.

What it does not require is spending £10 million on a player you have already had, in the hope that things will somehow be different this time. Because if the structure around him has not changed, they will not be. This is not about Kühn. It is about mindset.

It is about whether Celtic are a club that looks forward or one that keeps glancing over its shoulder, hoping the past can bail it out again. Because if it is the latter, then this is not just a bad idea. It is exactly how we’ve ended up in this mess.

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