SPFL level players should be nowhere near Celtic. This is getting ridiculous.

Once again, I find myself in something approaching disbelief at one of the conversations doing the rounds in Scottish football. This one concerns Celtic and our needs for next season, and it comes courtesy of Scott Allan.

He argues that Dundee United striker Fatah should be a target for us, that he could fit into our team.

It sounds eerily similar to the discussions we’ve heard around Motherwell players, the Motherwell manager, and earlier in the season, the talk about Kieron Bowie. It’s the kind of stuff that makes your brain itch.

I’ve heard people over the years rail against Brendan Rodgers and what they often describe as “Sky Sports scouting”.

But our own hacks do this all the time. Whether or not the criticism of Rodgers ever held up, there is absolutely no question that too many people in Scottish football too easily fall for players operating in what is, frankly, an abysmal league.

They watch a handful of decent performances and suddenly decide that this is someone Celtic should go for. Someone we can’t afford to miss out on. Someone who could “do a job” for us, and that mindset is exactly how you end up in the mess we’re currently in.

To be fair, we haven’t always followed that advice directly.

We haven’t consistently gone out and signed the obvious SPFL standouts. But we have done something just as problematic. We’ve chased “potential”. We’ve gambled on what players might become two or three years down the line.

Are these Scottish based players as poor as someone like Shin Yamada? Probably not. But that is an incredibly low bar, and it is not where Celtic should be shopping in the first place.

Everything about this kind of discussion frustrates me because it is so surface level. It is so basic. It strips the game down to a couple of moments and tries to build a transfer strategy out of them.

I’ve watched very few players in the SPFL who genuinely stand out a mile. The ones who do are usually obvious. They are clearly operating at a level above everyone else around them.

And here’s the thing.

Most of the time, those players are already wearing Celtic shirts.

When you see someone who stands head and shoulders above the rest in this league, they are usually ours. They are usually the kind of players you already know won’t be here for long because they’re destined for a higher level.

Yet every season we see the same cycle. People talk up players from Livingston, Motherwell, Hearts and elsewhere as potential Celtic signings. It happens again and again because too many voices like Scott Allan’s watch a couple of good games, often against Celtic, and jump straight to lazy conclusions.

There is more to being a Celtic player than looking good on the ball or scoring a few goals against poor opposition. A Celtic player needs a certain mentality. A Celtic player needs a higher level of technical ability.

A player at this club faces a step up in expectation that a lot of them simply cannot handle.

Many of them have already had their chance elsewhere. A lot come from the lower leagues in England, where they have failed to establish themselves, before ending up in the SPFL. The leap from that level to leading the line at Celtic Park is enormous.

Yet people make that leap in their heads without hesitation.

That’s the part I find both confounding and infuriating.

You have to ask what people have been watching all these years when they can mention these names in the same breath as Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton, Moussa Dembele, Odsonne Edouard or Kyogo Furuhashi.

That is the benchmark.

That is the level required to succeed as a striker at this club.

Over the years we’ve heard some preposterous names come and go on this basis. Louis Moult. Joel Nouble. Lyndon Dykes. Now it’s more of the same. People suggest Motherwell players as if they represent some hidden gem we’ve somehow overlooked.

We’re linked right now with Elijah Just, whose career has taken him through New Zealand and the second tiers in Austria and Denmark. All of a sudden, people are talking about him as a solution to Celtic’s problems. It’s absurd. You may as well recall Johnny Kenny from loan and tell us he’s ready to lead the line next season.

And that’s why this isn’t about snobbery. It isn’t about disrespecting players in this league or elsewhere. It’s about standards. At a time when supporters are crying out for ambition, for quality, for a rebuild that actually moves this club forward, these are the names people keep throwing into the conversation.

It’s not just lazy thinking. It’s insulting.

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