Is this the daftest Celtic transfer rumour so far?

Today has been a day of transfer rumours, and I do not usually comment on transfer rumours. But I have already spoken about the Andy Robertson story, which I can barely believe has surfaced again. Celtic are not going to sign Andy Robertson for all the reasons I have already listed. Nor do I think Celtic are going to sign Scott McKenna either.

McKenna is one of those players who gets linked with this club all the time. But when he was available literally for free, we did not make a move for him. There is no way on this planet that we are paying £10 million for Scott McKenna.

Nor should we. It is far too much money. He is not worth it, and there are better players out there in that bracket. In fact, there are better players out there for half the price. We could get two of them and rebuild the central defence for the cost of just him at that fee.

If £10 million is going to be spent on one player, I think all of us know which position that player has to fill.

Even then, I have my doubts.

This board is still smarting from having to pay a club record fee for Arne Engels, even though we would almost certainly recoup that money and make a healthy profit on top of it if he leaves in the summer. I am not expecting £10 million signings this summer.

I do not think we will get them.

There are people who say that we cannot afford a summer rebuild without running into major issues with financial sustainability. If we are not playing in the third-tier competition in Europe next season, we absolutely can afford a rebuild. A lot of that rebuild will be financed by the sales we make. That is the natural progression here.

We understand that Engels will go if the right money comes back on the table. I also strongly suspect that if the stories about Nygren are even close to true, and I would take some of them with a large pinch of salt, he too would go for a decent sum.

With that kind of cash, somewhere around the £40 million mark, you really could rebuild this squad in a substantial way.

If you are looking at players in the £4 million bracket, you could sign ten of them. If you are looking at players in the £5 million bracket, you could sign eight. That would transform the whole outlook of this Celtic team.

It would transform the make-up of the squad.

It would give us something worth watching next season. If the £40 million figure sounds outlandish, it is actually less than what Ange was allowed to spend, with the obvious caveat that we brought in a similarly large sum of money at the same time.

So while I do not think a £10 million outlay on one player is outrageous in theory, or something we should never do, I would rather see us marshal our resources a little more carefully than that. Scott McKenna at £10 million is not good business. It is crazy business, and I have little doubt that the story is nonsense.

The wider point still stands. If we are able to bring in a substantial sum from player sales, then every single penny of that needs to go back onto the pitch. No excuses this time. This club seems terrified of net spend.

Net spend is going to be necessary in the summer because the rebuild is huge.

That is the bad news for the club and for whoever sits in the manager’s chair. The good news is that there are likely to be some hefty player sales, and those sales will allow that net spend to happen at a level that does not break the bank or push us over financial sustainability rules.

It is only for one summer. It is only for the here and now. We do have the financial wiggle room, within those limits, to do this properly. But, like everything else, it is going to come down to where we finish in the league.

That is where the manager and the coaching staff have to get the next few weeks absolutely right.

Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.