There will be more than just six burning Celtic questions for Martin O’Neill come next January if we’re just looking at another raft of failed loans

Earlier today, I wrote about Haissem Hassan and whether his Celtic career is over before it has even begun.

Today, the Scottish Sun has gone one better and given us six burning questions for Martin O’Neill.

Hassan is one of them, as it happens.

So is Kasper Hogh, who is now 16 games without a goal.

Then there is the formation, the fan unrest and, naturally, the January window.

It is that last one I want to focus on.

In reality, this is a window where Celtic simply have to get it right.

Here is how the Scottish Sun put it on the midfield:

Celtic didn’t get the targets in that position over the line in the summer, and the fans will be desperate to see them act fast to rectify that.

Desperate is the right word.

Because the support has seen this film before, and we know exactly how it ends.

The fanbase is not going to accept another raft of loan signings acting as sticking plasters for the squad.

We have been there, we have done that, and we have the receipts to prove it.

Our last two windows have reeked of amateur hour.

Nine loan signings came through the door across those two windows.

And that is before we even get into what they cost us.

Not one of them has contributed anything meaningful to the first team, which tells you all you need to know.

The Scottish Sun even has a section on the January exits, and it reads like a list of the walking wounded.

Van den Berg has had one B team appearance since his £3.5 million move.

The two Chelsea lads, Shim Mheuka and Landon Emenalo, have barely been seen at all.

Sorensen and Lotomba look like they were brought in to boost the numbers, more than anything else.

The likelihood is that the two from Chelsea will head back to their parent club come January.

Sorensen is likely to follow them out of the door and back to Parma.

So that is a squad that was patched up in the summer, and will need patched up all over again in the winter.

And who knows?

Maybe next summer we will be doing it all over again.

The reason it keeps happening is sitting in plain sight.

Last weekend, Charlie Methven was on ACSOM and The Celtic Exchange, and he made a point that has stuck with me ever since.

He said that not having a technical director at your club results in exactly the kind of haphazard signings we have been watching for the last few windows.

Now, I’ll give Methven his due, because it is hard to argue with him.

Who is it at Celtic that actually owns recruitment?

Who is the person that looks at the squad, works out what it needs and then goes and gets it?

Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like a group of people reacting to whatever happens to be available on deadline day.

And when you are doing that, you end up with loan players from Chelsea who cannot get on the pitch.

Of course, loans are cheap.

They keep the wage bill down and they keep the books looking healthy.

In fact, that is the one thing the board have always been rather good at.

The balance sheet is looked after, and the support is left to pick up the pieces.

But the Ibrox side will be delighted to see us waste another window, won’t they?

Then again, I can only judge what I see from the outside.

Maybe there is a grand plan behind it all that we are not being told about.

But the results suggest otherwise.

Will it change this January, or will it be more of the same?

That is the question I would like to see answered.

The Scottish Sun reckons the first port of call has to be a midfielder in the Arne Engels mould.

A centre-back is also on the list, with Carter-Vickers injured too often and Scales not convincing week to week.

Fair enough, both make sense on paper.

But a shopping list is the easy part.

Anybody can write a list, and every Celtic fan on the planet has already written their own.

The hard part is identifying the right player, getting him through the door and making sure he is good enough to start for us.

And that takes people who understand how to do it.

You can’t fill a hole in the squad by crossing your fingers and hoping a Premier League side takes pity on you.

Well, you can, but you will not like the result.

Make no mistake, the biggest recruit we could see come through the door this January is not a player at all.

It is someone who actually understands what it takes to sign players for a football club.

Because that is what Celtic needs.

The support has been asking for it for years, and the board has ignored it for just as long.

Meanwhile O’Neill is the one left standing in front of the cameras explaining why the squad he has been given does not work.

That is not fair on him, and it is certainly not fair on us.

So here is my question for the people upstairs.

If you will not give us a technical director, why on earth should we trust you to get it right this time?

Not another bunch of sticking plasters…

Please!

Choose Read Celtic as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.