Celtic, why the Hell won’t you learn? Why won’t you move forward?

The end of the 2025/26 season is looming on Celtic’s horizon. The title race is still alive. The Scottish Cup is still there to be won. But even if Celtic finish this campaign with silverware, the bigger question remains.

What comes next?

Because what is happening right now feels painfully familiar. It feels like the same mistakes Celtic have made before, repeated again without proper conclusions being reached or lessons being learned.

Celtic have now offered contract extensions to Liam Scales, Luke McCowan and James Forrest. To me, that feels like the same old pattern. No strategic thinking. No serious future planning and no sign that the club understands what has gone wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. James Forrest is a veteran Celtic player. He has given this club so much, and he can still deliver moments.

But offering new contracts to Scales and McCowan? For God’s sake.

Handing extensions to players like that tells us something very worrying. It defines the level the club now seems willing to accept.

Celtic must start to make proper decisions.

We must begin acting like a professional club with history, identity and passion. To be honest, the current standings reflect a harsh reality. Celtic being in third place is not just the result of a bad run. Many of us see it as the consequence of stagnating squad quality.

So why is the “mediocre” label sticking? In my view, it starts with failed succession planning. The departures of elite performers like Matt O’Riley, Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kuhn left a void. Celtic have not filled that void with high-calibre replacements.

Then there is recruitment lag. Critics argue that the board’s “low-risk, high-return” model has finally hit a ceiling.

The bank balance may be healthy, but the lack of proven, plug-and-play quality has allowed teams like Hearts to close the gap through smarter, more targeted recruitment.

Then there is the defensive fragility. Celtic have conceded too many goals, and that tells its own story. This team does not look solid, and this is as bad at the same time as it has ceased to look ruthless. It does not look built to dominate.

I’m looking at this Celtic side right now, sitting third, and I can’t even pretend it is some cruel twist of fate or a run of bad luck. It isn’t.

It is the logical endpoint of decisions the club has made over and over again. The same patterns and tolerance for sub-par signings and players retained too long. The same refusal to be ruthless when it actually matters.

I feel it, because in a strange way it mirrors something human. That tendency to go back to what is comfortable, even when you know fine well it is not good enough.

Celtic do it. I’ve done it. We all have.

But the difference is that this is a football club. It is supposed to learn and evolve. It is supposed to sharpen itself after every mistake. Instead, Celtic soften.

I look at the squad and I don’t see a team that has been carefully built to dominate.

I see a collection that has been patched, compromised and justified into existence.

We could be in a position right now where the conversation is about securing the spine of the team. Locking down the players who actually raise the level. Rewarding the ones who make you believe something better is coming.

But that is not where we are, is it?

Instead of tying down the players you instinctively know you need to keep, the ones who give you that bit of class and difference, we are handing out extensions to squad players. I am not saying that to be cruel or dismissive. It is just the reality.

These are not the players you build your way out of a mess with. It is this quality, and our acceptance of this quality, that made the mess. These are the players you rotate. You rely on them in moments and appreciate them for what they are.

You do not elevate them into something they are not.

Let’s take for a minute about James Forrest. He is a player I respect.

A player who has given so much. A player who still has his moments.

But let’s be honest with ourselves. He is an impact sub now. No manager of this club will play him more than a handful of times. No manager is going to make him a starter ever again.

Impact sub is his role. That is where he is most useful. That is where he can still contribute. But when you start handing out contracts as if that role is something more central and more foundational, you are not planning forward. You are clinging backwards.

That is what this feels like. Clinging onto the past.

At the same time, we are accepting a level from others that should never have become the standard. When you allow that quality to settle in, and when you start convincing yourself it is “good enough,” it seeps into everything.

Into recruitment. Into selection and finally into expectations.

Before you know it, finishing third is not a shock. It is a reflection of where we are, and nobody will be able to say we don’t deserve to be.

This is where it becomes impossible to ignore.

Again, this is not personal.

It is about the level we’re at and how we got here. It is about what gets Celtic out of third place and back to where the club should be.

Deep down, we all know the answer.

That is the part that really gets me. It is not just that mistakes have happened. It is that Celtic keep repeating them with a kind of stubborn pride, as if admitting them would somehow show weakness. In reality, admitting mistakes is the only way you move forward.

I watch this and think, how many times do you need to see the same outcome before you change the approach? How many seasons of falling short, papering over cracks and telling ourselves it will be different next time?

Because it won’t be. Not like this.

You do not fix a mediocre squad by doubling down on it. You do not raise the level by rewarding the very level that is holding you back and you certainly do not rebuild by pretending squad players will drag you out of the hole. That is not a strategy for anything except moving towards the next failure.

Hope, on its own, is useless in football.

That is where the frustration really burns. It is not just the results. It is the sense that the club is not learning. There is no real self-reflection. No real shift in thinking. Just the same cycle, dressed in slightly different language and sold as progress.

I have seen this before. Not just with Celtic, but in life.

That moment where you know something is not working, but instead of changing it, you justify it. You convince yourself it is fine and it will all come good. You just need to stick with it a bit longer.

All the while, deep down, you know exactly where it is heading.

That is what this feels like.

A club that refuses to learn, because learning would mean admitting that the approach has been wrong all along. What is it that these people have not learned from history? It is not a sign of weakness to recognise, admit to and correct your mistakes. It takes strength to do that and admit your own errors.

But if you don’t do it, you stay stuck. You repeat. You stagnate.

Right now, that is exactly what Celtic look like to me.

Not because the potential is not there. Not because there are no players worth building around. There are. Reo Hatate. Alistair Johnston. Ben Nygren. Arne Engels. Heck, even Daizen Maeda if he wants to stay. Players who give you a platform to grow again.

But the decisions being made do not match that ambition.

You cannot demand excellence while rewarding mediocrity. You cannot talk about standards while lowering them in practice. And you cannot expect different results while making the same choices. It does not work like that.

So here we are. Third in the league, not by accident and not by injustice, but by design. By a series of choices that have led Celtic exactly to this point.

The hardest part?

Unless something fundamentally changes, unless Celtic start prioritising real quality, start extending the right players and stop pretending that players like Scales and McCowan are the answer, we will be right back here again.

Same questions. Same frustrations … and the same sorry story.

Because until the club actually learns, we’re doomed to replay this sorry season, like a bad record on repeat. Like a nightmare without end.

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