Callum Osmand must not be the excuse for Celtic not to buy a striker.

The manager delivered an injury update yesterday, and it was a mixed bag. Some good news, some bad, and some of it downright ugly. Celtic will not see Cameron Carter-Vickers again this season, and we will not see Jota either. Nobody really expected otherwise, but that doesn’t soften the impact.

On the more positive side, Alistair Johnston, Arne Engels and a few others are close to returning to fitness. That’s welcome, of course, but let’s be clear about what that actually means. It’s fitness, not match fitness. There’s a world of difference between the two, and anyone expecting immediate impact is setting themselves up for disappointment.

Already, one pro-board outlet has seized on the news around Callum Osmand and started pushing the idea that he was on his way to becoming Celtic’s first-choice striker. That narrative is not just wrong; it is deeply irresponsible.

Callum Osmand was nowhere near being Celtic’s number one striker, and it is a ridiculous burden to place on the shoulders of a young player who is still trying to find his feet. That kind of hype doesn’t help him, and it certainly doesn’t help the next manager of this club if that idea is prevalent within the walls.

He might get a few minutes before the end of the season. That much is possible. But we are not going to see anything meaningful from him until he has a full summer behind him and a proper pre-season to build on. That means next season, at the earliest.

Anyone trying to fast-track him into being the solution to our problems in the next campaign, especially in a way that conveniently absolves the board from going out and signing a proper striker, is pushing an agenda that could do real damage to this club.

Osmand had a good spell before he got injured. That much is true. At the same time, Johnny Kenny had a good spell too, and Kenny will probably never kick another ball for Celtic. That is the reality of this level. Promise does not equal long-term production, and potential does not guarantee anything.

What we are seeing here is not reasoned analysis.

It is not even optimism in the usual sense. It is the need to believe that the answer is already here, that we have simply been unlucky, that injuries robbed us of something that would otherwise have worked.

Because if it is bad luck, then nobody inside the club has to take responsibility for the situation we are in.

And that is the comforting lie some people want to cling to.

There are still supporters who resist the idea that this mess has been created internally, by the people running Celtic. At this stage, that resistance is not about evidence. It is about choice. The evidence is overwhelming. The pattern is clear.

But I understand why some fans don’t want to see it. It is easier to believe that we were unlucky or that this was all the fault of Brendan Rodgers than to accept that we have been badly run in key areas and it might be a tough road back.

It is easier to believe that the solutions are near to hand than to admit that serious work needs to be done. That’s human nature.

What is not acceptable is taking that mindset and using it to justify placing the future of the club on the shoulders of an unproven kid.

Callum Osmand might turn out to be the long-term answer. He might develop into a top striker.

He might surprise all of us.

But we do not know that. Nobody knows that.

Anyone pretending otherwise is guessing, and anyone suggesting that we should not go out and sign at least two quality strikers this summer because of that uncertainty is pushing an idea that is reckless in the extreme.

There are no shortcuts here.

There are no hidden solutions within the current squad, and there are no loan players waiting to ride in and fix this. The rebuild is what it is. It is going to require serious work, serious investment, and serious decision-making.

I will write more about this later, because there is a lot of revisionism going on around last summer’s transfer window. There are people determined to paint it as a success. It wasn’t. There are people trying to frame the last three windows as strong. They weren’t.

Only one of them came close, and even that one fell short in key areas.

That is not a coincidence. It is also not a coincidence that the almost successful one window was the one where the manager got closer to what he actually wanted, nor that it is the one which the board apologists are determined to paint as the biggest failure.

As for Osmond, I do have high hopes for him. He has shown something. There is clearly talent there, and he will offer more than some of the options we have relied on recently. That much is obvious.

But there is a huge difference between having potential and being ready. Right now, he is a squad player with promise. Nothing more than that.

He might get into the team. He might even look like the best option we have at times, given the state of the squad. But that is an indictment of where we are, not a justification for where we should be going. Celtic should not be going into next season relying on that.

He needs time and development. He needs the chance to grow into the role, not be thrown into it because the club failed to do its job properly. That is how you ruin players and that is how you compound mistakes.

Celtic need quality up front. Proven quality. Players who can come in and deliver from day one, players who raise the level of the team, not players who represent a gamble dressed up as a solution. Anything less than that is wishful thinking.

And wishful thinking is exactly how we ended up here.

It is how standards slip. It is how you talk yourself into believing things are better than they are.

We cannot afford that anymore. Not now. Not after everything we have seen this season.

If this club is serious about rebuilding properly, then it has to start with honesty about where we are and what we need.

And what we need is not another story about how the answer is already under our nose.

What we need is action to fix our very real problems.

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