Celtic are NOW looking at Kieron Bowie?? We could have had him for a cut price £5.5 million less than a year ago. Instead we got Michel-Ange Balikwisha…

Celtic are ready to ‘go all out’ for Kieron Bowie.

Read that back to yourselves, and let it sink in for a minute.

The very same Kieron Bowie who was sat at Easter Road eighteen months ago, available, and waiting on a phone call from a big club.

The very same Kieron Bowie who Hibs were happy to do business over.

We didn’t fancy it.

We turned our noses up at the asking price, like we always do, and let Hellas Verona nip in and take him to Serie A for £5.5 million in January.

And now, according to the Record, we’re going ‘all out’ to sign the very same player for £13 million.

Let me get this straight.

We wouldn’t meet a Scottish Premiership club’s price for a young Scotland striker on our own doorstep.

But we’ll happily go ‘all out’ and pay more than double for him a year and a half later, after an Italian club has fattened him up and slapped a bumper price tag on his head.

Not exactly smart business, is it??

Then again, when has smart business ever been the Celtic board’s strong point?

Because as we all know by now, at Celtic there are two magic numbers.

£3 million to buy a player, and £25 million to sell a top asset.

Anything in between causes convulsions in the boardroom and a treble bogey on an easy par 3 in Barbados.

So what changed?

What changed is that somebody else did the hard yards for us.

Verona took the gamble, paid Hibs, and watched Bowie score against Inter Milan, against Juventus, against Torino, against Bologna.

We watched too.

We watched from a distance, the way we always watch, keeping tabs on, monitoring the situation, preparing to make an offer, admiring the player from afar while somebody else signs him.

And now the price has more than doubled, we’re suddenly interested.

Of course we are.

The player we could have had for buttons is now a £13 million target, and we’re the geniuses chasing him.

Make no mistake, this is the Celtic way.

We don’t spot value.

We wait until a player has proven himself somewhere else, watched his price treble, and then go ‘all out’ to overpay for the privilege.

You know what I thought was worse?

While Bowie was there for the taking, we went and spent our money on Michel-Ange Balikwisha instead.

Nothing against the lad, but that was the plan.

That was the master stroke from our world class recruitment department.

Pass on a young Scotland cap for a modest fee, then watch him bang in goals against Juventus, and come back for him a year later at more than twice the money.

Jamestown Analytics at its finest.

And here’s the part that really gets me.

Verona’s boss Marco Baroni has already told his chiefs that Bowie is ‘too important a player to sell’ this summer.

Too important to sell.

He wasn’t too important for us to sell on to Verona for a fiver, though, was he?

Bologna are said to be in ‘pole position’ for him.

Of course they are.

So not only are we going in at £13 million for a player we could have signed for less than half that, we’re going in as the outsiders, scrapping over him with clubs who moved first and moved smarter.

We’re the ones playing catch up.

Again.

According to Corriere di Verona, the thing tempting Bowie back to Scotland is the chance to play in European competition.

European competition.

You mean the European competition we’ve spent years bombing out of at the first hurdle while £40 million gets pissed down the drain?

That European competition???

Pull the other one.

I shit you not, I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

I understand it, I get it, a young Scottish striker with Serie A goals in his boots would be a fine addition.

But we had him.

We had first refusal at a fraction of the cost, and Silent Mike and Co. let him walk because Hibs had the audacity to want what they felt their player was worth.

The audacity.

Isn’t it strange how we never grasp that concept?

We won’t accept a penny less than our own valuation when we’re selling.

But when it’s time to buy, meeting an asking price is treated like some sort of alien concept written on the back of a beermat in Barbados.

One rule for us selling, another rule entirely for everyone else selling to us.

So forgive me if I don’t get carried away by the ‘go all out’ headlines.

Because I’ve seen this movie before.

We’ll dither, we’ll lowball, we’ll leak that we’re ‘preparing to make an offer’, and by the time we finally move, Bologna will have signed him and we’ll be onto the next player we passed on when he was cheap.

It was ever thus.

We could have had Kieron Bowie for a song.

Instead we got Balikwisha, and now we want to pay £13 million to correct our own mistake.

Smart business, right enough.

World class recruitment from a world class board.

Aren’t we just blessed?

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