Why don’t Celtic just buy Motherwell if they’re doing everything right?

There are days when I read the chatter around Celtic and genuinely have to laugh, because if I didn’t, I would probably end up greeting into my tea. The latest obsession for some people? All things Motherwell.

A club sitting fourth in the league. A club with a fraction of our resources. A club we are now told, apparently without irony, has the blueprint Celtic should be following. And I sit there thinking, have I missed something?

Because from where I’m standing, the noise is deafening.

Motherwell have the best scouts, the best coaches, the best manager and the best recruitment. Their structure is sound. Their players are exactly what we need. In fact, we are now being linked with half their dressing room. The goalkeeper, both strikers and now Elliott Watt in midfield. We are of course linked to their manager. At this rate, we may as well start pricing up their kit man too, just in case he is secretly the mastermind behind it all.

That is where the sarcasm starts to creep in, because honestly, why stop there? Why don’t we just buy Motherwell outright? No, seriously.

If they are doing everything better than us, if they have cracked the code that Celtic, with all our money, history and expectation, somehow cannot, then why not just strip it all back? Replace our squad with theirs. Bring in their manager. Hand over the keys. Let the “model club” take over the biggest institution in Scottish football.

It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But is it any more ridiculous than the narrative being pushed right now?

Because here’s the reality a lot of people won’t accept. James has repeated this over and over again. Motherwell are fourth. Fourth. Not dominant. Not challenging. Fourth in a league that Celtic are expected to control. A league we might yet win.

Yet somehow, we have managed to twist ourselves into a position where we are looking up at them. Not necessarily in the table, but in terms of “how to run a football club.”

I don’t buy it. I can’t buy it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not blind to what Motherwell have done well. They have been clever. They have identified players with hunger, resale value and a fit for their system. They have probably had to be sharper than us because they have to be. When you don’t have millions sitting in the bank, you don’t get the luxury of getting it wrong again and again. Every decision matters more.

But that is exactly the point, isn’t it? They operate under constraint. We operate under expectation. Somewhere along the line, we have started confusing the two.

What is really happening here is not that Motherwell are suddenly this untouchable gold standard. It is that Celtic fans, myself included at times, are so frustrated with our own recruitment, our own inconsistency and our own inability to look like a well-oiled machine, that we have gone searching for an example. Any example.

Motherwell, sitting there punching above their weight, become the convenient answer. But it’s a simplistic one. It is way too obvious, and too easy. We’re overlooking a lot of very salient details here. Like their form. Their longest run of wins is three games. Yet you would think we were talking about a serious football power to hear people.

Because if Motherwell were truly operating at the mythical level some people suggest, they would not be sitting fourth. They would not be without a major honour.

That is where my frustration really lies. It is not that we are looking at Motherwell players. That, by itself, is not the issue. There is nothing wrong with identifying talent in the domestic league. Some of our best business over the years has come from exactly that. Players who understand the league. Players who do not need six months to adjust. Players who know what it means to walk out at Celtic Park.

I do wish people would think this stuff through a little. The players we’re being linked with would not, in a million years, have been considered good enough for Celtic just 12 months ago. That they are considered good enough now speaks to our own regression and the way we’ve been conditioned to accept what we otherwise would not.

We should not be aspiring to mirror Motherwell. We should be operating far above this. I cannot believe we’re now being linked with nearly half of their starting eleven, as well as the manager. It’s like we’ve fallen into a parallel reality.

I can feel the contradiction in myself as I write this, because part of me understands the appeal. I look at a player like Elliott Watt and think, aye, there might be something there. I look at their strikers and see hunger, movement and purpose. I look at their goalkeeper and think, reliable, composed, no nonsense.

Then I catch myself. Am I actually saying they are better? Or am I just craving clarity about where we’re headed as a club? It would be good to know that we’re not just making it up as we go along. That someone is following a plan. Because that is what Celtic seem to lack right now. Not money. Not pull. Not history. Clarity. A plan.

What is our recruitment strategy? What profile of player are we targeting? Are we building for Europe, for domestic dominance, or trying awkwardly to do both and achieving neither? I don’t always see the answers, and that uncertainty opens the door for this kind of narrative.

Suddenly, Motherwell look like the club with the plan. That is where the danger is. Not in signing one or two of their players, but in losing sight of who we are supposed to be, and who they are at this particular time; a club punching above its weight and players playing with freedom under a ceiling of low expectations.

I don’t want Celtic to become a club that shops domestically because it feels safe. I don’t want us to lower the ceiling of our ambition just because another club is getting praised for efficiency. Efficiency is fine. At Celtic, it has to come with excellence.

That is why the whole conversation leaves a bitter taste. Not because Motherwell are being praised. They have earned respect for what they have done. But because Celtic should not be considering raiding the fourth best club in this league; there is a whole continent worth of talent out there and it feels cheap and lazy to be thinking like this.

Scouting? With our resources, we should have networks that stretch across continents. Coaching? We should develop players to a level smaller clubs cannot replicate. Management? We should set the standard, not react to it.

Yet here we are, looking down the league table and wondering if the grass is greener.

I’ll tell you what it feels like to me. It feels like insecurity creeping in.

A fanbase that knows what Celtic should be, but is not convinced we are getting there right now. Instead of addressing that head-on, we latch onto examples like Motherwell and elevate them beyond their actual position. It is easier to say, “look how well they’re run,” than to ask the harder question. Why aren’t we doing better?

Why, with all the advantages we hold, do Celtic look so uncertain in the transfer market? Why do we seem reactive rather than proactive? Why does it feel like we are always one step behind our own expectations?

That is the real question. Not whether Motherwell have good players. Not whether their manager deserves credit. Not whether Elliott Watt or anyone else can play a bit.

The real question is why Celtic, the biggest club in Scotland, are thinking this way to begin with. Until we answer that, the frustration will keep bubbling.

I’ll keep reading takes that make me shake my head and mutter to myself, “Aye, just buy Motherwell then. That’ll solve it.”

Because beneath the sarcasm, there is a simple truth I can’t ignore.

Celtic should not be lowering its standards in this way. We should be aiming higher than this.

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