I keep reading articles suggesting that Celtic should sign this player or that player. I also see articles suggesting that we are tracking this player. Alternatively, some say that this guy or other have emerged as top targets. As a result, many say we should move for them straight away.
I’ll know we are in real trouble, the kind that makes this season look like a picnic. We are in trouble if we start buying players before a manager is through the door.
To me, any serious conversation about actual signings is a waste of everyone’s time until we know who the boss is going to be. In addition, doing it the other way round would prove that we haven’t learned a thing.
There are numerous really good players out there and we have been linked with some of them. The Bodo/Glimt striker is just one example.
But we are not getting any of those deals right unless the managerial appointment is made very early after this campaign ends. In my view, we should be aiming to have the next Celtic boss lined up, name agreed, deal signed and sealed as early as possible. Without that, we cannot even be certain the real rebuilding work has begun.
There is talk that players are already being listed.
I don’t know why we’re bothering. The man in the dugout should decide what our needs are. It really is that simple. It works. We’ve seen it work. The manager identifies the needs, the scouting department supplies the list based on those needs. Then the club goes from there. If the list is being produced before the manager is in the building, then he doesn’t really have the final say or the final input, does he?
That is the problem I have with all these helpful suggestions about who we should go for. The only way we are ever really going to know who we should go for is when we know who the manager is. No matter how good a player is in isolation, if he does not fit the new manager’s system then he is a waste of money anyway.
I know how much fun it is to think about transfer business. It would be easy to compile my own list of players. But as an exercise in actual planning, it is a waste of time, energy and effort. If our club were genuinely working that way, it would be beyond stupid.
I agree with those who say there are things we need to get on with and that we cannot wait until June or July before we start preparing for the window. We need to hit the ground running. We have a massive rebuild to do.
But building signing lists before appointing the manager is like building the roof before you’ve built the first floor of the house. It is pointless, self-defeating, and exactly the kind of muddled thinking that has helped get us into this mess.
The best thing this club can do right now is get the manager in the door. Get the signature on the paper. Get the deal done. Make it official before the season ends, before the summer uncertainty starts spreading through the whole place.
Let the new guy come in, see the squad, tell the players they will get a chance to prove themselves. After that, he should lay out how he wants to play, what his approach is going to be. Then let him tell the scouting department and the analytics people: “these are the positions and the roles that I need you to fill for me.”
Now, Paulina is writing a transfer-target piece at the moment and doing a proper analysis of one of the players we’ve been linked with.
That is not the same thing as saying “go and sign him right now.” In fact, it makes my point for me. What matters in that kind of piece is not the lazy headline version of “Celtic should buy this guy.” What matters is the analysis of the kind of footballer he is, the type of team he suits, and the system he fits into. Also, what that might tell us about whether he would make sense for us under a particular kind of manager.
That is useful. That is not the same as pretending we can draw up the shopping list before we know who the architect is.
In fact, over the next few weeks it would be a very good thing if every transfer story was looked at through that lens.
Not “would this player be exciting?” but “what sort of side would get the best out of him?” If the answer is that he needs a counter-attacking team, then what use is that to us? We are not a counter-attacking side, and we are not going to build one in the Scottish Premiership.
Rodgers said he wanted pace and power in his Celtic team.
How many of the players signed for him actually had those attributes?
There is also talk about who we will lose and who we will have to replace. Well, here’s a simple example. If we took Daizen Maeda out of this side, do we replace him with a player whose attributes are identical to Maeda’s? Or do we pick someone who offers us more in some areas and less in others?
I’ve said before that Maeda has often been at his best as an inside forward rather than a winger, because crossing is not his strength. But if you go out and buy another inside forward and the next manager doesn’t play that way, then you’ve wasted your money before the player has even kicked a ball.
So yes, take transfer stories with a pinch of salt. But don’t dismiss all analysis of players out of hand, because there is a difference. The first can tell you something useful about profiles, systems and the sort of manager we may be looking for.
The second is tabloid nonsense masquerading as planning. And until we know who the next Celtic manager is, that is all most of this stuff is.
We do not know how the next boss sets his team up. We do not know his philosophy. Nor do we know where he is coming from, whether it’s somewhere close to home or much further afield. We do not know his ideal template. And until we know that, nobody outside the club has any real clue who Celtic should be signing.
But I’ll tell you this now; we could do a lot worse than remember Ange.
He had a clear style of play and knew exactly which players would fit it. He knew his own playing system inside out. Also, he was able to identify those players in his own league and beyond who would fit that system like a hand in a glove. That is why his signings made sense, and why so many of them would never have been on our radar before he arrived.
That is the lesson here. Trust the manager. Not the tabloids, not the pundits, and not the assorted idiots telling us who Celtic should be trying to sign. Until we have a manager in the door, none of them has a clue.
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