“We’ll Go Back for Gineitis in January” – That Isn’t the Transfer Strategy Celtic Need

There is a phrase supporters have become far too familiar with.

“We’ll go back for him in January.”

If reports are to be believed, that could now be the situation with Gvidas Gineitis.

We have been heavily linked with the Torino midfielder throughout the summer. There have been offers, negotiations and plenty of noise around a potential move.

But if the deal cannot be done now, the suggestion that we could simply return in the winter raises a much bigger question.

Why are we waiting until January to fix problems we already knew existed in August?

That is not how a serious European football strategy should work.

Gineitis is exactly the type of midfielder Celtic need. Physical, aggressive, technically capable and still young enough to develop. He looks like the sort of player who could give Martin O’Neill’s midfield another dimension.

But if Celtic genuinely believe he is the answer, why wait?

The LASK collapse should have removed any doubt about the weaknesses in this squad.

We lacked control.

We lacked physicality.

We lacked leaders.

We lacked the ability to manage a game when everything started going wrong.

And that wasn’t something that suddenly appeared in Austria.

These were problems that existed before the Champions League play-off.

The summer was the opportunity to address them.

Instead, Celtic now risk entering another European campaign knowing there is a glaring hole in midfield, while hoping a January deal can eventually solve it.

That is reactive recruitment.

And Celtic cannot keep operating like that.

January is notoriously difficult. Clubs don’t want to sell important players midway through their seasons. Prices can increase. Competition can increase. A player’s situation can change completely.

There is absolutely no guarantee Torino will even want to sell Gineitis in January.

And if he has a brilliant first half of the season, Celtic could find themselves paying considerably more.

So what happens if another club gets there first?

Do we simply move onto another target?

This is the problem with treating January as a safety net.

January should be about opportunities, not repairs.

Celtic should be using the winter window to improve an already strong squad.

Not scrambling to fix deficiencies that were obvious months earlier.

The Gineitis situation therefore isn’t really about one player.

It is about how Celtic plan their recruitment.

If O’Neill wants a powerful midfielder capable of protecting the defence, progressing the ball and competing physically in Europe, then that player should have been in the building before the biggest games of the season.

And if Gineitis was genuinely the preferred option, Celtic should have been prepared to push harder to make the deal happen.

Because there is another uncomfortable reality.

Celtic don’t get unlimited opportunities to compete at the highest level.

Champions League qualification brings enormous financial rewards. The Europa League still offers valuable European football and prestige.

Yet we have once again reached the point where supporters are being told to wait.

Wait until January.

Wait until the next window.

Wait until the next opportunity.

We’ve been waiting long enough.

Celtic don’t need another transfer window to tell us what the weaknesses are.

We need a transfer strategy that identifies those weaknesses before they become problems.

And if Gineitis really was the man Celtic wanted, I’d rather have seen him at the club than spend another four months telling supporters:

“We’ll go back for him in January.”

Because by then, the European season could already be gone.