Too many around Celtic know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Earlier, Paulina wrote an excellent piece on the Marcelo Saracchi situation and the way some people are talking about how he does not fit the profile because he is 28 and has no resale value.

She covered the bases, and I cannot better what she wrote. But I can elaborate on the point, because I agreed with it wholeheartedly.

When she told me what she intended to write, I knew I had to do a follow-up. This is not just the loose talk of the prawn sandwich brigade or those people who believe they have some special insight into how Celtic is run and cannot wait to share it with those of us who supposedly just do not get it.

This reflects the thinking inside the club, and we all know it does.

The difference is that some will defend it and some will not.

No prizes for guessing where I come down on that front.

The whole thing is just daft. Those defending it are, by definition, fools. I am through trying to be nice about the insular thinking of these people.

They believe they are special, armed with secret information. They never question why those in authority at the club share this stuff with them. They never consider that they are being used, but that is exactly what is happening.

They are this board’s most useful idiots, and remember what I have long said about that phrase. Their utility lies in their willingness to be treated like mugs.

To the rest of us, it is exactly what Paulina said in her piece: we measure value in a totally different way.

I have written similar stuff myself, particularly about Adam Idah, who we made a loss on. That seemed to upset the balance-sheet obsessives. Yet without Idah, there would have been no three in a row. There would have been no Champions League group-stage football the following year.

Idah paid his transfer fee before we had even paid it.

The memories he gave us were, as Paulina said, priceless. That cup final goal alone, that moment of pure instinct which left the Ibrox supporters sick to their stomachs, cannot be priced properly on any spreadsheet.

But some people do not see it that way.

These are people more interested in the cash pile in the bank than in keeping the trophy cabinet well stacked. I have said for years that the way Celtic are run owes little to those in the boardroom and almost everything to a handful of outstanding managers whom those above them have consistently undermined.

Some refuse to accept that reality. Their problem is that they operate in too close a proximity to those who make decisions at Celtic. I do not know whether they are blinded by self-interest or simply star-struck fanboys who look upon Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay the way some supporters would look upon Henrik Larsson or Martin O’Neill.

I do know that it is pathetic.

I do know that they have the wrong set of priorities.

They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

They have a perspective on this club and what its future should be which is shocking to the rest of us, almost alien to supporters who want to see Celtic reach its full potential.

There is no doubt that they take their cue from the club itself. Some of these people have never had an original thought in their lives, and if they were not being spoon-fed this rot they would never have had the imagination to come up with it.

The club leads them on like the Pied Piper led away first the rats and then the children of Hamelin. They are the perfect salesmen for a policy which keeps Celtic in the slow lane. They are credulous, eager to please and arrogant enough to believe they are privy to some special knowledge.

But it starts inside the club.

Those running Celtic do not fill the heads of these people with a fantasy. They simply describe the policy to people so dazzled by their proximity to a limited form of power that they will swallow anything coming from that direction.

The executive board absolutely believes this is how the club should be run: every summer devoted to projects and punts, every window shaped by theoretical future profit, every signing judged partly by what he might be sold for later.

If that leaves the occasional Champions League pot of gold by the wayside, then that is just the cost of doing business.

Yet that cost gets higher every year.

A player like Saracchi might cost Celtic a few million pounds, and perhaps we will never see a resale on him.

So what?

God alone knows what five straight failures to reach the Champions League groups through qualifiers has cost us, but I bet it is a hell of a lot more than a handful of signings over the age of 26 would have.

That is the thing these people never want to calculate.

They are obsessed with the theoretical money lost when an experienced player cannot be sold later. They are far less interested in the real money lost when an inexperienced squad falls short, when obvious gaps are left unfilled, when managers are under-supported and when Celtic fail to grasp the European opportunities sitting right in front of them.

What bothers me most is not even the stupidity of the policy itself. It is the cognitive dissonance required to defend it.

The league title was won this season by a hardcore of players in this squad. Callum McGregor is 33. Kelechi Iheanacho and Kieran Tierney are both 29. Cameron Carter-Vickers, Reo Hatate, Luke McCowan and Daizen Maeda are all 28, just as Saracchi is.

Alistair Johnston, Auston Trusty, Liam Scales, Anthony Ralston and Jota are all 27, although Jota did not feature and might not for a while.

Yes, Benjamin Nygren, Yang Hyun-jun, Viljami Sinisalo and Paulo Bernardo are all 24. Arne Engels and Dane Murray are 22. Callum Osmand is 20.

So yes, there is youth in this squad.

But the core of this team has the experience which comes with age.

Anyone advocating for some rigid under-24 signing policy ought to take a damned good look at the squad which had the mental fortitude to win this title and ask themselves whether a group of kids could have pulled it off.

Of course they could not.

Success depends on blending the two. If you are not signing experience as well as youth, you are inviting disaster.

That should be obvious to anyone who understands football.

Young players bring energy, sell-on potential, development value and freshness. Experienced players bring composure, leadership, know-how and the ability to survive the moments when pressure suffocates a stadium.

A serious club values both.

An unserious club reduces everything to a set of figures and congratulates itself for being clever while leaving the manager short of grown men when it matters.

Look at some of the top players still doing it in Europe right now. Some signed for their present clubs in their thirties. Some are coming up to what was once considered retirement age in the game and can still write their own tickets because they have been there, seen it and done it all. Clubs who want to win understand that.

They do not fill entire squads with 21-year-old assets and hope leadership emerges by accident.

Iheanacho came up big for Celtic when it mattered because he has played at a high level and understands pressure. He has been there, seen it and done it.

When Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain stepped up to take his penalty against the Ibrox club, one idiotic commentator suggested he would never have felt pressure like that before.

A guy who won a Champions League final.

I never thought for a second that he would miss.

That is what experience does. It does not guarantee success, because this is football and anyone looking for a sure thing is in the wrong sport. But experience gives you a better chance of making the right decision in the biggest moment.

That has value. It has real value. Sometimes it has more value than anything a future transfer fee might bring.

The obsession with resale value is not a plan for winning. It is the worldview of people who would rather explain why Celtic cannot do something than figure out how it can. It gives the board an excuse to avoid ambition. It gives their defenders something to repeat.

But it is not serious football thinking.

So no, buying experience does not guarantee success. Nobody sensible is saying it does. Celtic can sign the wrong experienced players just as easily as they can sign the wrong young ones. But pretending that experience is not invaluable to a squad trying to win things is manifestly ludicrous.

A signing policy which rejects experience because it lacks resale ability is preposterous. It is plainly idiotic.

Still, some people will defend anything if it lets them continue to brown-nose with the big boys, even if those big boys are laughing behind their backs.

That is the saddest part of all.

The people defending this nonsense think they are showing sophistication. They think they are demonstrating that they understand the realities of modern football finance. They think they are seeing the bigger picture.

They are not. They are defending a small club mentality at a club which should be thinking, and acting, like a giant of the game.

Celtic does need projects. Celtic need young players. Celtic need development pathways and a player-trading model which functions properly. But Celtic also need winners. Celtic needs leaders. Celtic needs players who have felt pressure before.

Celtic needs footballers who can deliver glory now, not in some theoretical future which arrives years too late and leaves tens of millions in lost revenue scattered behind us on the path there. That is madness.

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