Celtic Are Finally Signing Players For The Team, Not The Balance Sheet — Martin O’Neill Has Changed The Rules And Here’s Why

Something has changed at Celtic this summer.

I’m not talking about the speed of the transfer business. We’re still capable of turning a relatively straightforward negotiation into something resembling a UN peace summit.

Nor am I suggesting that three encouraging signings suddenly wipe the slate clean after years of frustration.

My memory isn’t that short and my eyes remain firmly on the Board.

What has changed, though, is the type of footballer Celtic appear willing to spend serious money on.

Kasper Høgh.

Camilo Durán.

And now, barring a late catastrophe of the sort you can never entirely rule out with Celtic transfers, Haissem Hassan.

Look at those players and compare them with so much of the recruitment we’ve watched in recent years. There’s a significant difference.

These aren’t punts being brought in primarily because somebody has calculated what they might be worth three years from now.

They are footballers being signed because they can make Celtic better NOW.

For me, Martin O’Neill is at the heart of that change.

Celtic haven’t abandoned the model — they’ve finally been told how to understand it better.

For years, whenever Celtic’s transfer strategy has been criticised, the argument has usually been presented as though there are only two possible options.

Either Celtic sign young projects with enormous potential resale value, or they chuck the model in the bin and start filling the squad with 30-year-olds on massive contracts who will eventually leave for nothing.

It was always a false choice. There is an enormous middle ground.

A club in Celtic’s financial position can buy a 23, 24 or 25-year-old footballer who has already demonstrated that he can perform at a serious level.

You might have to pay £7million, £8million or £10million rather than £2million, but you’re reducing the footballing gamble.

Which is where the first priority should always be – the f**king football.

Crucially, you haven’t eliminated the potential profit either.

If Høgh and Duran score goals domestically and do damage in Europe like they have previously, what happens to their value?

It goes up.

Should Hassan arrive, establish himself and perform in the Champions League, what happens to the value of a player still in his mid-20s?

Exactly the same thing.

So Celtic aren’t actually abandoning their player trading model, they are finally showing some aggression and ambition with the fees forked out.

I am utterly convinced the fork was passed to them by Martin O’Neill the other week, whilst Ultimado played out behind the scenes.

Sunday was perhaps the clearest example imaginable.

Høgh didn’t simply score three goals against Kilmarnock. His entire performance demonstrated why spending more money on a footballer with a stronger CV can transform the players around him.

His movement was outstanding.

For the third goal in particular, watch what happens before the finish. Høgh initially makes his run centrally, reacts immediately when the ball goes wide and then creates the space he needs inside the penalty area.

The finish looks simple.

The work that creates it isn’t.

That’s what proper strikers do.

Suddenly Benjamin Nygren now has somebody making intelligent runs ahead of him. The attacking midfielders have a focal point. Crosses into the box have purpose.

Celtic created chances last season too. Plenty of them.

What we so often lacked was somebody whose entire game is built around turning those situations into goals.

The numbers don’t lie.

After years of debating whether various players might eventually become good enough for Celtic, it is refreshing watching somebody arrive who already looks as though he knows exactly what his job is.

There’s another important distinction with this group of signings.

Celtic are supposedly trying to become a Champions League club.

Not simply a club that occasionally reaches the competition. A club capable of competing once it gets there.

So why wouldn’t European performance form part of the recruitment criteria?

Høgh and Duran arrived having scored goals at Champions League level.

Hassan signs having been a regular starter in La Liga and catching the eye for Egypt against Argentina at the World Cup.

There’s evidence these signings present a greater chance of doing the business for Celtic.

That doesn’t guarantee success. No transfer does.

What it does is reduce the number of unknowns.

Celtic have spent far too many windows buying potential while simultaneously asking the manager to deliver immediate results.

Those two objectives don’t always comfortably co-exist.

Which brings us to Martin O’Neill.

I obviously don’t sit inside Celtic’s recruitment meetings, so I’m not going to pretend I know every conversation that’s taken place.

However, judging by the business Celtic are now attempting to conduct, I strongly suspect O’Neill has rejected a fair number of players this summer.

Why?

Because this doesn’t look like the recruitment strategy we’ve become accustomed to.

We’ve watched Celtic sign batches of relatively inexpensive prospects before. Bring four in, hope one develops, move the others around on loan and eventually quietly remove them from the wage bill.

O’Neill doesn’t have time for that.

His WFM (Win Football Matches) mantra applies to Europe as well as domestically.

At this stage of his career, he’s not here to spend two years developing somebody in the hope he might eventually become Celtic quality.

He needs players capable of contributing immediately.

That change of emphasis matters.

There also seemed to be a remarkable acceleration around the Høgh deal after speculation about O’Neill’s frustration with Celtic’s transfer business began circulating.

Can’t think why.

We’ve seen what happens when Celtic leave it too late.

This is also why I’m not suddenly handing out medals to the board for a few signings that have surprised us.

We’ve been here before.

People now look back at the summer Celtic signed Arne Engels and Adam Idah and describe it as a successful transfer window because of what those players subsequently contributed.

It misses an important part of the story.

They arrived late.

Celtic didn’t have Champions League qualifiers that summer. Had they done, those players wouldn’t have been available when they were needed most.

Ironically, we already had Group Stage football secured and therefore the riches that come with that as good as banked.

Yet still heels were dragged.

Idah had already demonstrated during his loan spell exactly what he could provide, yet Celtic still allowed negotiations to take forever.

Engels subsequently required time to settle before producing his strongest football.

Signing the correct footballers eventually isn’t the same thing as running an efficient recruitment operation.

Better players can make Celtic better AND make Celtic money

Ultimately, that’s the biggest lesson I hope somebody inside Celtic has finally learned.

Footballing ambition and financial prudence aren’t enemies.

Sign better footballers and you increase your chances of qualifying for the Champions League.

Compete better in Europe and you increase revenue.

Players performing against stronger opposition increase their individual market values.

For too long, Celtic have occasionally appeared obsessed with protecting the downside while failing to appreciate the enormous financial upside available from simply building a better football team.

Høgh, Durán and Hassan suggest a different approach.

Players entering or approaching their prime. Players with stronger CVs. Players who can contribute immediately while retaining enormous resale potential.

That is the market Celtic should be operating in far more regularly.

And if Martin O’Neill has had to bang a few fists on tables to make that point clear, good.

There remains plenty to criticise about this transfer window. The pace has again been unacceptable, Champions League preparation has again been unnecessarily compromised, and a handful of good deals won’t erase what came before.

But I’ll acknowledge improvement when I see it.

For once, Celtic appear to be spending money with the first question being –

“How much better does he make the team?”

Rather than:

“How much might we sell him for?”

Ironically, if they keep answering the first question correctly, the second one will take care of itself.

Keep Your Eyes On The Board.