A Celtic striker needs just one thing. Our current crop don’t have it.

The other day, I talked about the key attributes a Celtic striker needs to be successful here. I wrote it because we were linked with Tyrese Campbell and I wanted to evaluate the strengths of that signing through a few specific criteria; first touch, close control, composure and finishing. He came up short.

But the doubts would never have surfaced in the first place if he had possessed another specific skill-set. There is one other attribute a striker must possess, and it matters more than any flashy highlight reel or overhyped scouting report.

A Celtic striker has to arrive here having already proved he can score goals. Not look like he might do it one day. Not lived off potential and promise. I mean proper, cold, hard evidence. Goals. Numbers. End product.

The true currency of a striker.

When I look back at the best modern Celtic forwards, I do not see gambles. I see certainty.

I see men who walked through the doors already carrying that weight of expectation because they had earned it elsewhere. Henrik Larsson, Gary Hooper, Scott McDonald, Leigh Griffiths, John Hartson, Odsonne Edouard, Kyogo Furuhashi, Giorgos Giakoumakis. I could go on, but in modern times they have been exemplars of this requirement.

That list is not just a roll call of talent. It is a pattern. A blueprint. Every one of them arrived at Celtic Park with goals already stitched into their boots.

That is where so many people get this wrong. They obsess over where those goals were scored instead of recognising the more important truth; that they were scored at all.

Take Larsson. People love to rewrite history as if he arrived at Celtic fully formed, already a European superstar waiting to explode.

Some remember it differently. His record was built in Sweden, not at Feyenoord, where they pushed him out wide and used him badly. Yet even then, the underlying truth remained the same. He knew where the net was. His Swedish record told his story. The goals were there. They simply needed the right system, the right belief and the right stage.

The same goes for Griffiths. For all his flaws and frustrations, nobody ever had to pretend he was a goal scorer. He had already proved it. He went to Wolves and it did not work out, but goals follow instinct, and instinct does not vanish because a system fails you.

Then there is Edouard. Yes, he came from the Paris Saint-Germain reserves, but let us not pretend he appeared from nowhere. He was prolific at youth level. He tore through defences for France at every under-20 level. The signs were there. The evidence was there. Celtic did not create a goal-scorer. Celtic refined one.

The same applies to McDonald, who arrived from Motherwell, and Hooper, who came from the lower leagues in England. People turned their noses up at those deals at the time. They said it was not the right level. But the managers who signed them cared about the numbers. They cared about the fact these men lived for goals, breathed goals and built careers around putting the ball in the net.

That is the truth I keep coming back to. The level does not matter nearly as much as people think. It never has. What matters is the habit. The repetition. The proof. Goals leave a trail, and the best Celtic strikers followed that trail straight into the Hoops.

So now, when I turn to Tomas Cvancara, the latest striker to be found wanting in the Hoops, I do not get swept away by speculation or lazy comparisons. I ask the only question that really matters. Has he done enough before to justify signing him? Has he shown, consistently and relentlessly, that he knows how to score goals?

Because if he has not, then everything else is just noise.

I want to be fair here. I am not interested in tearing a player down for the sake of it. Every striker at Celtic should be judged against the standard set long before he pulled on that jersey. That standard is ruthless.

It is not about looking the part. It is not about physicality, movement or the odd flash of quality that makes you think there might be something there. Celtic is not a development project for strikers still learning the job. It is a proving ground for players who have already shown they belong.

So, I ask again, has Cvancara proven it? When I look at his record before Celtic, I do not see the same weight of evidence I saw with the names above. I do not see a striker who banged in goals season after season and forced clubs to take notice.

You can talk all day about positioning, movement, strength and link-up play.

All of that matters. Of course it does.

A modern striker must be more than just a poacher.

But strip it all back, take away the tactics board and the analysis, and the same question remains.

Can he put the ball in the net?

Kyogo could. Larsson could. Giakoumakis could. They did not need ten chances to score one goal. They made moments count and punished defences.

These players turned half-chances into goals, and goals into momentum, and momentum into trophies.

That is the standard. Which begs the question; what did people think they saw, to recommend Cvancara to Celtic? And are these people still in the building “advising” Celtic on signing strategy?

His lack of goals does not mean he is a bad player. It does not mean he has no qualities that could be useful in a squad. But Celtic do not need useful when it comes to strikers. Celtic need decisive. Clinical. Proven.

Because this club is at a crossroads. I feel that deeply. This is not just about one player. It is about direction. About ambition. About whether Celtic are willing to learn from their own history or ignore it.

The rebuild ahead cannot afford sentimentality. It cannot afford guesswork. It has to be built on players who have already demonstrated, beyond doubt, that they can deliver.

That applies to the striker position above all else.

I look at the squad and I see gaps, not just in quality, but in identity. Celtic used to carry an edge in front of goal. A sharpness. Opponents felt it before a ball was even kicked. That edge has dulled, and it will not come back through hope or patience alone.

It will come back through proper recruitment. It will come back when the club recognises that money in the bank means nothing if it is not turned into quality on the pitch. When Celtic understands that investing in the squad is not a risk but a responsibility and that the greater risk is allowing things to drift.

I feel strongly about this. Celtic cannot keep signing strikers who are still trying to prove they might be good enough one day. That is not the level this club should operate at. Not now. Not ever.

We need men who walk through the door already knowing what is expected because they have done it before.

We need goalscorers. Proper ones. The kind who do not need excuses, time or endless justification. The kind who take one chance and bury it.

Players who turn games. Those players win titles.

That is the task Celtic need to grapple with. Not next season. Not after another experiment.

Now. Because this rebuild, from top to bottom, has to mean something. It has to be real.

Celtic already have the resources. The money is there. The foundation is there. What is needed now is the courage to act on it, to invest properly, to recruit intelligently and to restore the standards that made this club what it is.

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