I’m beginning to understand just how Celtic supporters feel. For I too have experienced an unwelcome blast from the past this week, having been floored by Covid. Covid!
Like Walkmans, Tamagotchis and basic civility, I assumed that was firmly a thing of the past. But no, I can regrettably confirm that it has made an unsolicited comeback, and like the re-emergence of mullets, was even more unpleasant second time around.
Still, at least this time - after a few days of bedrest - I’ll be able to re-join society, sit on park benches free of police tape and not have to queue up outside Tesco at bargepole-length from everyone else. So, small blessings and all that.
For Celtic fans, there seems to be no escaping their own gruesome groundhog day, as their club are yet again glacially slow out of the blocks in the transfer market. It is a tale as old as time, save for the Ange Postecoglou years, and one which the club’s fans have become wearyingly familiar with.
There has been an element of leeway afforded to the Celtic board so far in this window, given that the team aren’t facing the prospect of late-July jaunts to Eastern Europe or Scandinavia for Champions League qualifiers, but as time ticks on, anxiety levels are beginning to be cranked up ever so slightly.
Shipping four goals to Queen's Park in midweek with a side that had Scott Bain and Benjamin Siegrist taking a half each between the sticks and a defence that contained - with the greatest of respect - the likes of Dane Murray and Yuki Kobayashi, did little to quell any rising fears.
The fact that the Scottish champions are going straight into the revamped Champions League may have bought Celtic a little time, but it has also raised expectations in terms of the quality of player they sign.
And speaking of throwbacks, there is that word again – ‘quality’. If Brendan Rodgers had a quid for every time he uttered it during a frustrating January window, he’d be able to give Barcelona a call and check on the availability of Lamine Yamal.
He doesn’t quite have that level of dough at his disposal, but Celtic aren’t exactly in the poorhouse either. In relative terms, they are absolutely rolling in it, and fans don’t take too kindly to the wealth they largely pumped into their club being hoarded in bank accounts and spreadsheets instead of being invested in the playing squad.
In fairness, after putting their supporters through weeks or even months of this sort of torment, Celtic do usually produce signings. Last summer, they pulled a whole host of them out of the hat in the end, but at the risk of beating a dead horse, it is not quantity that is the watchword this time around.
The context in which Adam Idah arrived at Celtic, as a last-gasp loan deal from Norwich City in January, initially provoked outrage from supporters, but he was a success, and is likely to return to the club. So too, is fellow loanee of last term, Paulo Bernardo, from Benfica.
Even these deals are taking a while to get over the line though as the club haggle over fees and wages, even though we were told during the season that a fee for Bernardo had already been agreed. It would be harsh though to berate the board for trying to get the best possible deal they can. Fair enough.
But even supposing both of those players arrive, that would leave Celtic in roughly the same position as they were at the end of last season, when the league and Scottish Cup double was a highly commendable achievement, but didn’t half paper over some pretty sizeable cracks in the make-up of Rodgers’ squad.
And, let’s not forget, Celtic would actually still be behind where they were in May, as they have yet to replace the influence and ability - both on and off the park - of goalkeeper Joe Hart.
With no head of recruitment in place either since club chairman Peter Lawwell’s son Mark left in March, it leaves the impression – rightly or wrongly – of an operation that is listlessly drifting through the window, and that it has been left to manager Rodgers to take on the burden of identifying and recruiting players.
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In the modern day, you will be hard pushed to find another club of Celtic’s scale that operates in such a manner, and it is an issue that has angered fans for a decade or more now.
If Celtic want to shake that perception, they will have to spend some money in ensuring that they go into the Champions League with at least a puncher’s chance of avoiding humiliation.
No matter what they do, they may be taking a water pistol to a gunfight when it comes to challenging Europe’s elite, but their aim surely has to be finishing in the top 24 of the 36-team league that will ensure a play-off to qualify for the knockout stages.
With this squad, plus Hart, Celtic again finished bottom of their four-team Champions League section last term. Rodgers, who has cited restoring the Celtic’s credibility in Europe as a driver behind his return to the club last summer, will demand that he is given at least a chance of doing so.
Matt O’Riley may well be moving on, and for big money too. Another summer in which the club brings in as much as it pays out might well please those around the boardroom table, but it will go down like a lead balloon with those around the Celtic Park stands.
Fiscal prudence is one thing, and is an important feature of Celtic’s success over the last decade, but we are now at the point where the club have to shed their ‘biscuit tin’ image once and for all, tool up the squad and give their manager what he needs to take his team to another level entirely.
As it stands, they aren’t even at the level of last season. If they don’t remedy that in the coming weeks, I won’t be the only one with a familiar, sickly feeling.
