O’Neill’s latest comments suggest that Celtic’s policy making is as incoherent as before.

A day or two ago, I wrote a piece that wondered if we’re perhaps not part of a great deception; that O’Neill is already confirmed as the next manager and is putting the pieces in place for next season’s time. That would be deeply concerning, and especially in the way he has gone about it so far.

The contracts to Forrest, McCowan and Scales show us the likely shape of next season’s team. That’s not speculation any longer because yesterday, Martin O’Neill said the quiet part out loud. Celtic do not merely have a squad issue. Celtic have a squad management problem, a recruitment problem, a loan problem, and a decision-making problem all wrapped into one. At the core is a bloated squad.

His comments yesterday were striking, not because they were especially dramatic, but because they were so blunt. “In terms of getting other players into the football club, yes, we will have a top-heavy squad come the end of the season or come when people are reporting back,” O’Neill admitted. “I did not realise how big it is.”

That is not the language of a man who has glanced at the squad list and noticed a couple of spare names.

That is the language of someone who has looked properly at what Celtic have assembled. It is not the language of someone who expects to walk away at the end of the season. O’Neill might not be planning to remain as manager.

But these are not the comments of a man who sees himself as merely minding the shop for a few weeks before handing the keys back.

He sounds a lot like someone who is already thinking about the summer is now taking a long look under the bonnet. O’Neill went further.

“To bring new people in, you’ll have to,” he said, in relation to emptying this club of anyone who isn’t going to fit in. “Absolutely, you couldn’t cope with (the squad size) … you couldn’t cope. And (moving them on) might not be the easiest thing in the world.”

That is the rebuild right there. Not hinted at. Not dressed up in corporate fog. Stated plainly. This squad needs gutting. It’s nothing we didn’t already know.

Celtic cannot bring in the players they need unless players leave. The squad is already too big. The players coming back from loan spells will add to that. Some of them have years left on their contracts and will not want another temporary move. Some will want permanence. Others will believe they can still do a job here.

This is the kind of situation serious football departments are supposed to avoid.

Loaning players out can be useful when it is part of a clear development plan. It can be useful when there is a defined pathway back into the squad. It can be useful when a player is being polished for the first team or placed in the shop window. But we’re not doing any of that. We buy these guys for managers who do not want them and cannot use them and we loan them out because we have to … and they stay on the books for ages.

Players are moved out of sight, which doesn’t solve the problem. They disappear for a season, then they come back, and the issue has not gone away. It has merely been deferred. The wages are still there. The issues we have them remain.

O’Neill has now acknowledged that. He has admitted that the squad is bloated and that clearing it will not be easy. That is important. But that’s where I start to worry when you put it beside the recent contract decisions.

Because if Celtic know all this, if O’Neill knows all this, if the club understands that the squad is top-heavy and needs trimmed before proper recruitment can begin, then why are we handing new deals to James Forrest, Liam Scales and Luke McCowan?

That is the contradiction at the heart of everything he said yesterday. Does he really believe these guys represent the calibre of player we want to keep? As I’ve said already, I would send Scales and McCowan out with the rest of those we could easily replace. Contract extensions running into years? Increased salaries? We are stuck with these guys now. They will become core players in whoever’s rebuild this is, and that is lunacy.

The club is saying, through O’Neill, that the squad is too big. It says players must leave before proper recruitment can happen. It says difficult decisions lie ahead. Then, almost in the same breath, it preserves some of the poorest parts of the existing squad.

God help us if this is indicative of the wider plan, and I fear that it is.

There is a case for experience in a squad. There is a case for having dependable professionals around the place.

You may even argue that there is a sentimental case for James Forrest, given everything he has done for the club over the years, although sentimental decision making should not have its place in a professional, forward thinking organisation.

Martin O’Neill should not hand James Forrest a contract because he likes the idea of him ending his career at Celtic. The club should not shield Liam Scales from the consequences of a necessary rebuild just because he is reliable, available and familiar. The club should not keep Luke McCowan on the back of some vague idea of domestic depth when the new manager has not even decided if he fits.

The next manager, whoever that is – unless it’s O’Neill himself – should inherit room to reshape this squad. He should not inherit a set of decisions made on his behalf by people who may not even be here when the rebuild begins in earnest.

This is what makes O’Neill’s comments so revealing and I think disturbing. They do not support the club’s recent actions. They expose the incoherence behind them, and for God’s sake, we should have already have had enough of that to last a lifetime.

If Celtic were blind to the scale of the issue, that would be bad enough. But they are not blind to it. O’Neill has just told us that. He has looked at the numbers and realised how big the problem is. O’Neill understands that new signings require exits. He understands that the loan players returning will complicate things.

On top of that, he understands that some of the players Celtic currently have will be wanted elsewhere, and that departures at the top end of the squad will almost certainly need to be managed. Which means that the players we’re most likely to lose will be the better footballers at the club. All this was blindingly obvious already. What I said earlier is true; the difference now is that Martin O’Neill has said the quiet part out loud.

There is no lack of awareness here. It is something worse. Either it is a lack of alignment, a rebuilding job started already before the most important man at the club is already in the building, or Scales, McCowan and Forrest are key personnel next season. If that’s the case we’re in a whole different world of trouble.

Whatever is going on, it looks like a goddamned mess.

On the surface you have part of the club which appears to understand that the squad needs serious surgery, starting with gutting out the rubbish. But another part is handing out comfort contracts. One part knows that Celtic need to create space. Another part is locking in the most mediocre bit of the squad before the summer has even begun.

This is how clubs drift. Not through one catastrophic decision, but through lots of small, comfortable ones. A year here. A renewal there. A player kept because he is useful. Another kept because he is popular. Another kept because letting him go would require a more difficult conversation about what we intend this summer to be.

Before long, the squad is full of middling players and we’re miles from where we thought we would be that night in Munich. I’ve said for the past 18 months that this is the version of this club that this board wants; a low-cost team without major earners, spending tiny sums on potential and hoping it somehow gets us over the line.

We’re watching that version of Celtic be born right now.

This club needs a modern football structure. It needs proper scouting and analytics that actually feed into recruitment. It needs a clear understanding of player roles, system fit and succession planning. Celtic needs people, in short, who know the difference between a decent player and the right player. And we can’t do it on the cheap.

Celtic need football intelligence at the top of the house. But that intelligence has to be part of a coherent structure. Right now, coherence is exactly what seems to be missing.

A month ago, I’d have said I’d have welcomed O’Neill as part of that structure. It can’t be him. He’s too wedded to the strategy. He thinks bad implementation is all that’s wrong with it, he’s been captured by Desmond’s idiotic way of thinking. We’re not going to move forward if he’s part of this. We need a fresh thinker, someone whose outlook is modern and fresh, and who won’t be content to muddle along.

That is why these comments matter. O’Neill has given us a glimpse of the real scale of the summer ahead. He has admitted that the squad is too big, that exits are needed, and that some of those exits may be difficult. He has also, perhaps without intending to, made the Forrest, Scales and McCowan extensions reveal more than he wanted to.

Because those decisions now sit inside a bigger question.

Are Celtic preparing for a serious rebuild, or are they preparing for another downsizing, in terms of our ambition and the quality of this squad? Because if we’re intended to cut this squad down to the bone and we’re also looking at losing Engels, Maeda, Hatate and perhaps a couple of other top footballers whilst we’re retaining Scales, McCowan and Forrest you can believe that we’re not surrounding those guys with players of high calibre.

A serious rebuild means hard choices.

It means thanking loyal servants and moving on. It means accepting that dependable players can still be upgraded.

What we’re hearing here is not promising. It does not suggest that we’re on the brink of some great evolution. Quite the opposite.

Celtic have done that kind of thing before. That is why supporters are right to be wary. That’s why there was not exactly universal joy at the contract extensions for three players most us probably thought we needed to get out of the building.

Nobody wants chaos. Nobody wants a reckless clear-out for the sake of cutting numbers. But there has to be a clear plan. There has to be a sense that every contract, every loan, every signing and every sale fits into something bigger … and I both worry that it’s not and I worry that is as well, because if it doesn’t then we’re watching the start of another shambles. If it does then I can see the shape of the ambition … or lack of it.

Celtic now see the size of the mess. Yet they still look intent on creating a new one. O’Neill’s comments ring alarm bells.

He is right. Celtic must clear the decks. Celtic must rebuild properly.

The danger is not confusion. O’Neill understands the scale of the problem.

The danger is what follows. He still trusts the same process to fix it. He trusts the same people who caused it. Desmond and others may have told him Rodgers was the problem. The evidence suggests that he would believe them.

Our issues run far deeper than anything Rodgers was responsible for.

I fear what comes next.

The idea of O’Neill shaping the future worries me and increasingly, he speaks as though he expects a central role.

This is not the Celtic we expected that night in Munich when we came close to a miracle.

We have come from there to here and we’re going from here to who knows where.

I worry about the journey. I worry about the destination.

The current leadership will take us into the summer after a disastrous 16 months.

That leaves only one reasonable reaction. Concern.

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