Celtic transfer stories are everywhere. We’re looking at materials before hiring the architect.

Today there are a lot of Celtic transfer stories in the press. Some of them sound fairly ridiculous, and it is a strange place to be when a story from Football Insider sounds like the most plausible of the lot.

That isn’t to say I believe it for a second.

I find it absurd to be talking about transfer stories when there is no manager in the building. I find it completely bizarre that any of these stories could be true in any meaningful sense.

The Football Insider story links us with Falkirk’s young striker Barney Stewart, and it is possible that we are looking at the 22-year-old. It is possible that this is the age group where we think there is potential.

But I don’t trust anything that website says at the best of times.

These are not the best of times.

Still, that story makes more sense than the idea that we are going to spend £10 million on another midfielder, even if the guy has a decent pedigree. It also makes more sense than the idea that we would consider spending £10 million on Scott McKenna, which is a story I do not believe has any credibility at all.

No matter how many times we have scouted that guy, we are not paying that fee for him. I absolutely refuse to believe it. I will be astounded if we spend that money on McKenna, and I will also be very worried.

This website doesn’t write transfer stories often, although I think you may see more of them next month for one reason or another. We also haven’t had a proper transfer story writer on this blog since my good friend The Rumour Guy was doing them, until he was no longer able to.

Paulina has said that she wants to do the transfer stories over the summer, and I’m happy for her to do that.

But the summer will be when there is a manager in place. The summer will be when we are hopefully following some kind of plan.

Right now, it is not clear that we are.

I try to keep a realistic perspective about this stuff. I try not to think that this club is going to do anything it has not done before, or anything it has not been willing to do before.

We do need to change the way we do things. But I don’t think the change is going to be dramatic enough that we suddenly start spending £10 million on an ex-SPFL defender who has no resale value and has never been worth that sort of fee.

I don’t see any real coherence in what we are doing at the moment.

Obviously, we are looking at players. Obviously, we are scouting. But if we are really sending people to watch someone like Scott McKenna three times, then I wonder what basis we are doing the scouting on.

Are we looking at players who have been on the target list for years and simply going back to them? Is that what we are reduced to?

Are we really saying there are no other central defenders in Europe we could be looking at?

The issue is not just the names. It is the numbers.

Two players at £10 million each would be a huge chunk of the transfer budget. El-Faouzi might be in the right age bracket, at 23, to justify a major outlay, but it would still make a significant dent in the transfer kitty.

Paulina has written what I think is the definitive piece on this subject. We are going to see the “£40 million” story this summer. Could Celtic really spend that kind of money on transfer fees over the course of the window?

Not only could we, we should.

We must.

Because we could bring in close to that on player sales.

Used properly, that kind of money can buy a lot of good footballers. But you cannot spend half of it on two players. That is where the wheels fall off the wagon. That is where things stop adding up and start looking dumb.

In terms of the kid from Falkirk, Barney Stewart, I’m sure the fee would be modest. Only one question has to be asked: is he a better backup than the likes of Johnny Kenny?

Then there is the second question. Can we develop a 22-year-old into someone who could score regularly for the first team?

If he has the tools, we can do that job.

As for the first part, Johnny Kenny should not be in the squad either way.

But really, is this the best we can do as a club?

El-Faouzi at Schalke is probably a good player, but he plays in Germany’s second tier. I don’t think you spend £10 million on a second-tier player from Germany, especially not when it looks increasingly likely he would be replacing Arne Engels or one of the other top midfielders we already have here.

Quite possibly, Benjamin Nygren will also be moving on.

It is going to take some very good players to replace those guys. If you have £10 million to spend in that area, which we certainly would if those two left, I would rather that money was spent on two players rather than one.

I don’t think it is selling the team short to say that two £5 million midfielders might get you more bang for your buck than spending £10 million on one guy and taking that big a punt.

If we sell Nygren and we sell Engels, I would hope that we spend more than that on the midfield. I would hope we go out and sign three new midfield players, including the ball-winner this club has been crying out for over the past decade.

But there is a lot of money needing spent elsewhere in this team as well.

A significant amount of it has to go on the forward positions. We need at least one left-sided attacking player. I think we need two right-sided attacking players unless Jota is back, properly fit and ready to go.

If we are losing Maeda, which seems likely, then he has to be replaced too.

That is before we even sign a striker. That is before we even sign one of the right-sided players. There is such a lot of work to do.

So we have to be careful.

Every move we make has to be thought out. Everything we do has to be reasoned and properly considered.

This is not a joke. We are facing the most significant rebuild we have seen in a long, long time.

So here is the question.

How do you start building before the architect is in place?

Until the architect is in place, I would be very careful about sourcing the raw materials. We all accept that we have to be able to present the new manager with a list of options. I accept that scouting work has to continue. I accept that clubs cannot simply stand still until the manager is appointed.

But if Scott McKenna is one of those options, I don’t know what it is we are going to build.

If players at Motherwell, Hibs and Falkirk make up the core of that list, then it looks as if we are planning to build with lower-quality parts.

No harm to those guys. Some of them may be good footballers who go on to decent careers. Some may even be useful squad players at the right price.

But Celtic should be aiming bigger than this.

Higher than this.

Smarter than this.

This is the summer when the club has to show that it has learned lessons. It has to show ambition, coherence and proper planning.

Right now, the stories in the press do not suggest a clear plan.

They suggest noise.

And if this rebuild is going to be done properly, Celtic need a lot more than noise.

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