Arne Engels is the type of player Celtic should be aiming to sign in every window.

The news tonight that Arne Engels is being monitored by AC Milan will not come as a surprise to even the most grizzled Celtic fan who does not follow social media.

Engels is one of the best signings this club has made in aeons because he is the complete package. Still very young though he may be, you can see that he will develop into the complete footballer.

That was what he was signed for in the first place.

Engels is the ultimate example of the transfer policy this club should have been following for years: bring in top-tier young talent from an established top-five league, with growth potential through the ceiling, to a club which turns players into winners, exposes them to high-intensity pressure and plays European group-stage football almost every season.

We are a perfect finishing school. Celtic and Engels were the perfect match.

A club with a reputation for developing talent. A player with all the talent in the world to develop. I still cannot believe the way Engels was dismissed by a lot of people.

I have never hidden my disgust at it, nor my view that for many people it was simply an extension of hating Brendan Rodgers.

Rodgers made three high-profile signings in that second summer transfer window which propelled us to within penalty kicks of a treble and that amazing night in Munich. All of them were successful in a Celtic shirt. All of them helped deliver trophies and titles. All of them helped us earn more European money.

At one time or another, all of them were branded failed signings, because that was a way to target the manager and undermine him as a coach and talent spotter.

They will cling forever to the idea that Adam Idah was not a great signing because we overpaid for him and then did not recoup the fee. I would suggest that his goals, his Ibrox goals, his cup final goal, his Champions League goals and the goals that got us to the Champions League in the first place made him more than a good signing.

He was, in fact, a bargain at the price we paid.

Some of these people are similarly critical about Auston Trusty. They will say Trusty was never Celtic class, whatever that means in a team that has Liam Scales at centre-half and recently gave new contracts to him and Luke McCowan.

Trusty stepped up this season when Carter-Vickers was no longer available and, under tremendous pressure, helped steady the ship. He was part of the back line that got us to the double and produced more than credible performances in Europe.

But as much doubt as people want to cast on those two, it amuses me that the subject of the greatest doubt has been the one no one should dispute has been the real success story.

Engels has vindicated everything about that transfer.

In terms of performances, he has grown into a highly credible midfield presence. In the latter part of this campaign and in big European matches, he looked like a player who belonged on that stage.

In terms of value, the fee we paid compared with the fee we might now receive tells its own story.

Everything about that signing has been justified.

Last summer, in a complete repudiation of the Rodgers philosophy and in complete disregard of what was even then apparent about Engels, Celtic went straight back to its previous policy of paying sums in the low millions for unproven players from backwater leagues, in the hope that some of them might have a little bit of talent.

The difference could not be starker.

Rodgers went out and signed a player who, although nowhere near the finished article, had already played for a serious club in a serious league and did not look out of place.

There was not the slightest doubt about the pedigree of the player we were buying.

But that £11 million transfer fee scared the life out of people. It infuriated them that Rodgers was willing to spend that kind of money on one footballer.

When Rodgers did not immediately throw Engels straight into the team every single week, and when there were times when all three of the big-money signings were on the bench, the board could not have broadcast their displeasure more loudly if they had done it through megaphones.

They were not even shy about saying it in front of the media.

But Rodgers knew what all good managers know. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with having top talent sitting on the bench.

You are supposed to have top talent sitting on the bench.

Having an £11 million player sitting there sends a message to the rest of the league and to every opponent you play against. It says: this guy may be our record signing, but he is just another part of the team.

Rodgers knew exactly what he was doing.

Stil, they undermined him over Engels in particular at every step.

When we get a Scottish record transfer fee for this kid, when some club comes along and offers us more than double what we paid, with the fee so many people thought was too high blasted into the stratosphere, it will vindicate Rodgers.

It will vindicate the strategy behind signing a player like that, from a league like that, with a pedigree like that, for a fee like that.

But I fear we will not learn the lesson.

We will not see what Rodgers was trying to teach us, because the people in charge of this club were stunned that he was willing to pay that fee for a player in the first place.

I am not even here advocating that Celtic spend £11 million on the next young, up-and-coming talent we find in a top-five league. But we cannot, on the back of Engels, simply go back to taking £2 million punts and pretending that is smart recruitment.

Because had Engels not justified his price tag, even if that £11 million had been what some people were desperate to call it – a complete waste of money – I think of all the money we have squandered elsewhere.

I think of the Kwons. The Yamadas. The Australian wonder-boy wingers. The Ukrainian attackers the manager apparently did not even know were about to sign. I think of all those long years of experimental signings, of cross-your-fingers-and-hope-for-the-best footballers thrown at top-class managers who were told to make do.

How much money was wasted on them?

A hell of a lot more than £11 million.

And that does not even take into consideration the idea that you sell Kyogo and then Adam Idah, throw the manager Shin Yamada as their replacement, fail to get past Kairat Almaty in the Champions League, and cost yourself another £20 million or £30 million.

You tell me whose strategy sounds crazy. You tell me which plan sounds insane. Because that is not even a contest.

When Arne Engels leaves Celtic, he will leave a giant hole in the midfield. I have little doubt that we will try to fill it with some player none of us has ever heard of, on a low transfer fee, in a deal which has more than a little “cross your fingers and hope for the best” to it.

That is the real fear.

Engels is the poster boy for what we should aspire to be. He exemplifies the strategy we refuse to follow. Unless something very dramatic is about to change at Celtic, his success will teach this club nothing.

And that is the tragedy.

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