Celtic’s scattergun approach in the last stretch of the summer window should surprise nobody, nothing has changed…

The window is almost shut.

Which means we can finally have a proper look at what we actually did in those last 72 hours, rather than just reacting to it as it flew past us.

And it did fly past us.

Six deals crammed into a single afternoon, a manager racing out of his post-match media conference at Pittodrie to get them over the line, and announcements landing on the Celtic website not far off midnight.

If you judged the whole thing on volume alone, you would think we had a right good window.

The happy clappers certainly think we did.

They have been out in force since Tuesday night, telling anybody who will listen that the board came good in the end.

So let’s test that.

Let’s do a very simple exercise.

Let’s count how many of the players we brought in over those last few days will still be Celtic players in May.

The honest answer is one, and even that one comes with a caveat about how this board operates.

✍️🇳🇱 Celtic are delighted to announce the signing of Joël van den Berg, who has joined the club from PSV Eindhoven on a four-year deal, with the option of a further year, subject to international clearance.

Welcome, Joël 💚#WelkomJoël | #CelticFC🍀 pic.twitter.com/SQZBZcTkVW

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) September 2, 2026

Joel van den Berg arrived from PSV Eindhoven for £3.4 million.

He is 19 years old, he cost an actual fee, and he signed an actual contract.

He is the only arrival of the entire closing stretch that you can say all three of those things about.

Jordan Lotomba is 28, and he has put pen to paper on a one year deal.

One year.

What exactly is the long term thinking there?

So the right-back we spent deadline day scrambling for can walk out of Celtic Park next summer for absolutely nothing.

Then you have the loans.

Oliver Sørensen goes back to Parma if we decide not to activate his loan to buy clause.

Sam Johnstone goes back to Wolves.

Landon Emenalo and Shim Mheuka go back to Chelsea.

Four players, four return tickets, and not ONE of them ours past the end of the season.

Well, maybe one, but we have to see how Sorensen performs throughout the season for Celtic.

How do you plan a season around that?

We have assembled a squad out of other people’s players, and we are being asked to call it ambition.

Now, in fairness, there is nothing wrong with a loan signing in isolation.

Every club in Europe uses that market. Some of the finest players ever to pull on the hoops arrived here on a temporary basis.

But a loan is a patch, not a plan.

And when your entire deadline strategy is patches, you are not building anything.

You are getting yourself through to January.

That is all this was.

Ambition, was it?

Camilo Duran will hit double figures at his ease, and that is precisely what should be worrying you.

Camilo Durán Wonder Goal For Celtic v Aberdeen tonight at Celtic Park, is there a better player in Scotland than Camilo Durán, This guy is the best player in Scotland since Henrik Larsson. pic.twitter.com/DAlUpoiCAx

— Colin Sutherland (@ScotlandColin) September 2, 2026

Because here is the part the celebrating conveniently skips past.

The players we actually own – the ones genuinely worth something – are the ones most likely to be gone.

Duran has been electric since he walked through the door.

The boy is going to score double figures this season without breaking sweat, and anybody who watched him against LASK already knows it.

And the better he plays, the shorter his stay becomes.

It is the same story with Benjamin Nygren.

I wrote about this a full week before the window shut, and nothing since has changed my mind on it.

21 goals last season, a flying start to this one, and a growing queue of people down south who have taken notice.

A £20 million offer is pocket change to an EPL club.

So if that offer lands next summer, do you think this board hesitates?

Do you think there is even a conversation about it?

They would have the paperwork done before the boy had his boots off.

Every window ends the same way, because every window is designed to end the same way.

Just look at the numbers on this one.

£3.4 million spent in the closing stages of the window.

Around £10 million banked from Reo Hatate to Burnley and Johnny Kenny to Preston.

Close to £20 million of PROFIT turned across the window as a whole.

21 players out the door.

That is not a football strategy – that is a trading position.

And it was never going to be anything else, because this is a board that plans to profit from failure.

We were dumped out of the Champions League in Linz, and eight days later we were shopping in a blind panic.

Gvidas Gineitis collapsed after we had chased him the whole summer long.

We tried to borrow Justin Devenny until the day his contract ran out rather than pay Crystal Palace their £6 million.

Scattergun does not even begin to cover it.

And who exactly is being held to account for any of it?

So no, I’m not joining in with the celebration.

Not because the new boys are bad.

One or two of them may well do us a turn between now and May.

But because in nine months’ time, we will be standing here having this exact same conversation.

The loans will have gone home.

Lotomba’s year will be up.

Somebody will have bid for Duran, or for Nygren, or for both of them.

And the board will be sat there, books balanced, profit posted, telling us all how well they have done.

You know it, I know it, and they know it.

Nothing has changed.

Nothing ever changes while the absent meddling golfer is the one calling the shots.

Same window, different year…

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