To supporters of other clubs, hearing Celtic fans getting restless about the amount of money their club has stashed under the mattress provokes some bewilderment.
They must sound like Ross did to Chandler in that famous scene from Friends, as he admonished his pal for his mumping and moaning with the sarcasm-laden retort: ‘Oh no, two women love me. They're both gorgeous and sexy. My wallet's too small for my fifties, and my diamond shoes are too tight.’
The news released to the stock market on Tuesday though that the club’s financial results are set to post even higher revenues and cash reserves than had been expected might not be all good news for the Celtic board, coming as it does in the middle of a transfer window that has been characterised by a wearyingly familiar sloth-like inertia. If they didn't have to put that message out there, I doubt they would have.
When reporting from the club’s AGM back in November, I was struck by the difference in the room between the reaction the board members seated at the top table clearly expected from the attendees when trumpeting their large bank balance, and the actual reaction from the floor.
Boasting about rude financial health is all well and good, and the vast majority of Celtic fans will be, I’m sure, glad that their club is being run with a level of financial prudence. But there are limits to their satisfaction at a healthy bottom line when they don’t see that cash trickling between the white lines on the pitch.
More money, more problems, you might say. But the frustration that Celtic fans are currently feeling regarding their club’s lack of transfer activity comes from a situation entirely of the board’s own making.
There is time left in the transfer window of course, and they may surprise us all by loosening the purse strings towards the end of the month, when the availability of players in the English Premier League, for example, may be a little clearer.
The absence of Champions League qualifiers has allowed them this period of relative grace, but patience is wearing dangerously thin.
Brendan Rodgers has got the players he does have at his disposal functioning well over pre-season, and they carried that slick form into the opening day win over Kilmarnock. If anything, this side show is rather sucking the positivity out of the way the team is performing.
The manager may already have enough in the building to dominate the domestic scene this season, then, but keeping their noses just ahead of Rangers is no longer enough for many fans, particularly with the current state of play at Ibrox. It all comes down to a question of ambition when it comes to Europe.
When Rodgers stood in front of a jubilant away end at Rugby Park back in mid-May after clinching the Premiership title, he spoke of how work had already started on recruitment for the following campaign with the aim of making an impact in the Champions League in mind.
Not that we're entirely sure just who is doing that work, with no replacement for former head of recruitment, Mark Lawwell, having yet been appointed.
As it stands, almost three months later, Celtic have signed a keeper that Rodgers worked with previously in his career in Kasper Schmeichel, a back-up with potential from the Aston Villa reserves in Viljami Sinisalo and a midfielder in Paulo Bernardo who was on loan at the club last season and who would not currently be expected to start games in the strongest lineup.
When Celtic faced up to Kilmarnock again on the opening weekend of the new season, only Schmeichel had replaced Joe Hart in the starting XI, with the rest of the side made up of players who had been at the club last term. They have only one first team striker, in the form of Kyogo Furuhashi, and hearts were in mouths when he went down late on against Killie under the challenge of Robby McCrorie.
It’s all well and good saying there is time to get bodies in, but in the meantime, Kyogo will be asked to stay on the pitch for longer I’m sure than Rodgers would like at this stage of the season, heightening his risk of picking up an injury. The same can be said of Greg Taylor at left back, another area where it is difficult to fathom why there is such a lack of urgency around strengthening it.
Whichever way you slice it, the squad is not therefore in a stronger position than it was during those title celebrations in Ayrshire back in May, a point that still stands even if Celtic do eventually haggle their way to a deal with Norwich City to bring Adam Idah back to the club.
Matt O’Riley looks a racing certainty to leave in this window, bringing even more money into the club, perhaps even a record fee. But his absence will also hugely weaken the starting midfield at the same time.
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If that money isn’t reinvested in a quality replacement before August is out, could you rule out a boycotting of Champions League ticket packages, such would be the anger among supporters? Probably, at least in a scale large enough to catch the attention of anyone upstairs at the club, but the simple fact that fans are starting to look for a way to express their disgruntlement - in my view, rightly - should be a concern.
When the board were coming under fire for the level of their remuneration at the AGM in the winter, club chairman Peter Lawwell defended their pay packets by saying that Celtic’s record profits didn’t happen by accident. When it comes to the executives that - in his view - delivered them, you get what you pay for.
It is a philosophy that doesn’t seem to extend to the playing squad, though. By applying the same logic, what Celtic have currently paid for is the same sort of underachievement and disappointment on the European stage that the fans have witnessed for the past two decades.
So, some time there may still be, but the clock is ticking. There is far less patience to speak of, and the more money Celtic tuck into their coffers, the more frustration grows at their seeming reluctance to part with any of it to enhance the quality of the team.
