Celtic transfer deals wait for more information. What are they doing across town?

A lot of people seem to have expected Celtic to do business during the last five or six days, and there has been some disappointment that nothing was transacted in the run-up to the weekend. But there was no real reason for Celtic to force anything through before the aftermath of this second leg is known.

To be blunt, for once we are not the club taking the reckless gambles here. We are doing it right.

Celtic could spend money now. We could spend it before Tuesday night’s game kicks off. We could commit serious cash, then watch some kind of disaster unfold in the Champions League and find ourselves out in spite of the first-leg victory. None of us anticipates that, but it is not impossible, and if the unthinkable happened it would obviously change the shape of the rest of the window.

That is why waiting makes sense.

It sounds increasingly like Celtic are going to try to sign two central midfielders. It sounds as though the club wants the complete package of options in that area, which would suggest we still expect Reo Hatate to depart. But there is no need to force any of that through while the Champions League situation still hangs in the balance.

We know the hand we are holding right now. You can argue whether it is a good hand or a bad hand, but the cards are on the table and nothing Celtic do before Wednesday morning is going to change them. I imagine deals have progressed behind the scenes, perhaps significantly, but there is no obvious reason why they need to be completed before we know exactly what European football we are dealing with.

The Bosnian, Ermin Mahmic, looks increasingly likely to sign.

There has been far too much chatter about him saying goodbye to team-mates and far too much certainty from the media around his current club for there not to be something substantial in that story. There have also been hints dropped to Scottish journalists that this one is progressing, and I expect something to happen there.

If it does, it will be a very positive move.

The other midfielder, Gvidas Gineitis at Torino, is a different question. I suspect that one is being held until tomorrow is out of the way before Celtic make the decisive move. There are probably other defensive midfielders under consideration as well, but those deals will depend on how much cash the club is prepared to commit, and getting through to the Champions League league phase would vastly increase our flexibility.

So, it makes perfect sense to hold off until we know.

That is our side of the room.

Across the city, I could not tell you what on earth they are doing.

There is talk that the Ibrox club is preparing to push the button on the signing of the winger from Spain, with a transfer fee attached which seems almost obscene considering how little he has done in senior football and how uncertain their own financial position must be. I do not understand why they would commit serious money they do not yet know they can safely spend if European football disappears on Thursday night.

If they go out and still push that deal through, trouble could wash over them like a tsunami.

Now, I grant you, we know what they are like as a club. There is every chance they do not press the button at all until their fate is decided, and if the deal then collapses there will probably be some explanation offered which somehow manages to make the player himself part of the problem. This is just how they roll.

But the very fact that the deal is being talked about in these terms raises expectations amongst their supporters. It creates the impression that the club is committed to spending this kind of money on one player regardless of what happens in Europe, and I do not understand how that can possibly make fiscal sense.

I wrote about the sunk-cost fallacy the other day, and this is exactly the kind of thinking I was talking about. Once a club starts behaving as though previous spending has to be justified by even more spending, rational decision-making can disappear very quickly.

Somewhere along the line, there is always a price to pay for that.

It has reached the point where even some of their own websites are asking how it makes sense to sign a 20-year-old from Spain’s second tier for this kind of money when they do not yet know what their European income is going to look like. If their own support is asking the question, then you can be fairly sure the obvious madness of it is visible to everybody else.

Celtic, by contrast, is being careful because that is what Celtic does. Dislike it, agree with it, disagree with it, think it is too cautious or think it drives you insane, but the club is exercising restraint because it does live within its means.

Celtic tries to spend what it earns. It does not usually take massive unfunded gambles, and in this particular instance the logic of waiting is obvious. We are talking about another two days.

Once the second leg is done, once the league-phase money is secured and once the club knows that jackpot is actually on its way, then Celtic can start moving seriously and decisively for the players who will complete this window.

That is the point at which caution should end.

There is a difference between sensible delay and habitual dithering, and Celtic has been guilty of the latter far too often in the past. But I do not think that is what this is. Waiting forty-eight hours to know whether Champions League money is guaranteed is not the same thing as waiting three weeks to decide whether you need a player in the first place.

Those are completely different things.

Across the city, the situation appears far more precarious. They are banking on deals which may never materialise and, if you want to know my hope for the rest of this window, it is very simple: I hope they sell nobody.

Not one. I hope not a single one of those alleged superstars who are supposedly attracting interest from clubs all across Europe actually gets a move, because their wage situation must already be difficult, their squad size is ludicrously bloated and their overall costs have to be becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

If they are operating on less money than they expected, and if Thursday night ends with a European exit, that stops being merely a football result. It starts looking like a year-zero event.

That is when every decision made in this window gets re-examined.

Every fee. Every wage. Every contract. Every player they thought they could move on.

Every assumption they made about European income.

And if they are carrying a bloated squad into that environment, the consequences could be severe. This is why I keep coming back to the difference between the two clubs right now.

Celtic are waiting because the information required to take the next decisions is almost here. That is rational.

The Ibrox club appears willing to spend ahead of certainty, to keep adding to a squad which already looks overloaded and to behave as though future income can simply be assumed. That is not rational.

There could be fireworks this week.

There could be major deals at Celtic once Tuesday night is out of the way. There could be panic across the city if Thursday goes badly. There could be exits, failed exits, rushed signings and the kind of last-minute chaos Scottish football specialises in.

But whatever happens, one thing is already clear to me.

One club is waiting for the facts. The other looks like it is gambling.

And that, ultimately, is why I think Celtic are far more likely to come out of this transfer window in a stronger place.

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