Is Andy Campbell having a laugh? Staunch Del needs a ‘wee bit of help’ after getting TEN signings through the door already? Celtic have shown him exactly what quality over quantity buys you…

A “wee bit of help”.

That’s what Derek McInnes says his squad could do with.

Nine players in the door this summer, and the man needs a “wee bit of help”.

Now, I wrote a piece on Saturday about Celtic having a strategy while the Ibrox side has strategic chaos.

I thought I’d said everything there was to say on it.

Then Andy Campbell put McInnes’ pre-match presser up on the BBC, and I realised I’d barely scratched the surface.

Because here is a man sitting on ten signings, one point from two league games, and a Conference League play-off he never imagined he’d be in, telling us all that what he really needs is a wee bit of help.

Jesus wept.

Yesterday, they got their first win in in the League Cup against a naive St. Mirren side.

They now await us in the League Cup quarter final on the weekend of the 12/13th.

Ten players in, one point on the board, one win, and the manager’s diagnosis is that he’s a bit short of bodies.

Here’s what he actually said.

It’s not been the start we wanted, but the intention is still to have the outcome that we want come the end of the season.

We’re still working hard towards that and we’ve got money to spend. We’ve got a lot of younger players and what we could do with is just a wee bit of help.

We need to try and win games as we go along because if you don’t, everything becomes so much more difficult. Everything gets scrutinised.

Read that middle paragraph again.

“We’ve got money to spend.”

Two draws, two defeats, one win, out of the Europa League, and the answer is more money.

Not a shape.

Nope

Not a system.

Not an idea about which eleven men he actually wants on the pitch.

Money.

The exact same reflex his chairman has, the exact same reflex his sporting department has, the exact same reflex that got them here in the first place.

And then their own former players lined up on the BBC to make my argument for me, which was very good of them.

Andy Halliday first.

If you’ve signed 27 players in a year, something’s gone seriously, seriously wrong.

Astonishingly, I actually agree with him.

Twenty-seven players in twelve months.

Then, about four seconds later, Halliday tells us what they still need.

A starting right-back – check.

A starting centre-half – check.

Then, a starting centre midfielder, which as he himself points out is unbelievable considering they’ve signed three of them this summer – check.

Two more wingers – check.

And another striker if Del wants to keep playing two – check.

That’s six more.

Nine in the door, and their own man is asking for six more on top, which would take them to fifteen in a single window and thirty-three in a year.

Something’s gone seriously, seriously wrong, right enough.

He just can’t see that he’s describing the disease and prescribing more of it in the same breath.

Meanwhile, over at Celtic Park, we’ve been doing this the boring way.

Haissem Hassan.

Mika Baur.

Emenalo looks done, Gineitis is being worked on, and the Record reckons there are six more still in the pipeline off that leaked July list.

Nobody at Celtic is claiming to have solved anything.

I’m certainly not.

But there’s a list, and the list is being worked through, and every name on it is a name somebody actually chose.

That’s what quality over quantity looks like when it finally gets a run at it.

Compare that to a squad that is a Russell Martin rebuild underneath, a Danny Röhl patch job in the middle, and a Staunch Del layer sprayed over the top of it in July and August.

Three managers, three philosophies, three rebuilds, twelve months.

And the man standing in the middle of that wreckage wants a wee bit of help.

Richard Foster says he hasn’t become a bad manager in four games, and he’s right, because he was never a good one.

I do believe Derek is the right man. He’s not become a bad manager in four games.

He didn’t become a bad manager in four games, Richard.

He arrived as one.

One major trophy in almost twenty years in the game.

A 46.5% win ratio.

The platform brogues and the club blazer and the angry heid on the touchline were never going to change any of that.

Yesterday, he finally got that first win, which relieved the pressure somewhat.

Jablonec could bringing that temporary respite crashing down around his ears again.

John Robertson then goes and rounds it off nicely.

He has to be given time to build his team, put his stamp on it. He needs to sort out the spine of his team and that’s going to take more money.

More money.

There it is again.

Three men on the BBC, three different angles, and every single one of them arrives at the same place – that the way out of a mess caused by signing too many players is to sign more players.

That isn’t analysis.

That’s the klanbase’s own logic with a microphone in front of it.

And the bit that gets me is the honesty, because he was actually honest, and it made no difference at all.

Give the man this much.

He didn’t hide behind the injuries, even though he had them, admitting he’d been forced into playing “square pegs in round holes” against Jagiellonia.

And on the support, he was straighter than most.

They need to see action. Nobody is sitting here and asking for understanding and patience. I quite understand the frustrations and it’s been more than just these four games where the frustration starts to build.

Before yesterday’s win, he said, “It’s been more than just these four games.”

He’s not wrong, is he?

That’s a manager telling his own support that the rot predates him, which is the truest thing anybody at that club has said in a year.

But truth isn’t currency at Ibrox.

You can ask Russell Martin.

Ask Patrick Stewart.

Ask Kevin Thelwell.

Every one of them gone the moment the klanbase turned, every one of them with a board following rather than leading, and not one of them saved by being right about anything.

So the whole thing got tested at four o’clock this afternoon, and Del passed, but it will be tested again on Thursday.

St Mirren was easier than expected, I’m not sure Del will relish facing us in the quarter final.

Two Thursdays in August against Jablonec after that, and if that goes the way Jagiellonia went, there’s no European football and no European income at Govan until next summer.

I’m not going to sit here and call the result on that one.

I did that once already this summer and the football gods have long memories.

I’ll say this – Craig McLeish’s side capitulated, but Jablonec will be a different story.

If that crowd is asked to sit through another evening of square pegs in round holes on Thursday, they’ll find somewhere to vent it, exactly as their manager predicted they would.

And before anybody at our end starts measuring themselves for a blazer, remember Wednesday.

Lask, Champions League qualifier, and everything I wrote yesterday about strategy and chaos gets re-marked at about twenty to ten that night.

One good fortnight still doesn’t buy back three bad windows.

It’s all to do for us, and theym.

All going well, we’ll have the feet up for the Jablonec game after doing the business in the first leg on Wednesday night.

Del’s 5-1 win yesterday will buy his 3 days of relative peace.

Lose again on Thursday, and the boos will be ringing loudly in his ears.

No rest for the wicked, as they say…

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