Towards the end of Celtic’s victory over Hibs at Easter Road on Sunday, the consequences of the club’s incomprehensible procrastination off the field this summer were becoming clear.
The Premier League champions started the day as they had the week before against Kilmarnock, with Kyogo Furuhashi in attack.
The Japanese player’s ongoing shoulder problems were hardly a state secret. When he took the brunt of a strike from Hibs defender Marvin Ekpiteta around the hour mark, the visiting fans’ hearts were in their mouths.
The striker resumed the match after some treatment on the field, but was clearly suffering from discomfort and had to leave the field in the 75th minute.
With no equivalent replacement available, Rodgers brought in Mikey Johnston, a winger, to play as a striker.
The ridiculous situation was further highlighted when Johnston himself was forced off the field deep into injury time after a collision with the Hibs goalkeeper.
Furuhashi is being treated by Celtic doctors after sustaining a shoulder injury at Easter Road
Brendan Rodgers has previously expressed his displeasure with Celtic’s transfer deals
Furuhashi and Idah will now be reunited for the new campaign when the Irishman finally signs
In the end, it made little difference. With two impressive league wins under their belt, Rodgers’ team are already top of the table. Off the pitch, however, they are flying on instinct.
It shouldn’t have taken long for Furuhashi to suffer yet another injury blow before Celtic finally picked up the phone and asked Norwich and their price for Adam Idah’s return.
While the confirmation of Idah’s imminent arrival will be welcomed with open arms by the club, the fact is that this is long overdue.
Eleven weeks after the Irishman scored the winning goal in the Scottish Cup final against Rangers, and with just over two weeks left in this transfer window, the club’s transfer activity has been slow.
While the minimum outlay of £8.5million for the 23-year-old is certainly substantial, it will not in itself alleviate the frustration and concern among members.
It will not have escaped anyone’s attention that the late arrival of the man from Cork means Celtic are now at the same level as they were at the end of last season.
Idah’s Scottish Cup final winner last season has already made him a bit of a Parkhead icon
Kasper Schmeichel looks like a great replacement for Joe Hart and should train his long-term successor, Viljami Sinisalo. For £3.5m from Benfica, Paulo Bernardo looks like good value.
But it took an awfully long time to stop. The talk of a left-sided centre-back, a left-back and another midfielder has remained there.
There is clearly still time to fulfil Rodgers’ wish for ‘quality’, but there is no escaping the fact that a once favourable negotiating position is being further undermined by the day.
When it takes so long for a regular like Idah to come together, it seems like a tall order to put together a squad that can make an impact in the Champions League in just over two weeks.
The time when the club signed Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate before the start of 2022 seems like an eternity ago now.
Idah will of course be happy that the deal has finally been completed, but there have certainly been times over the past two months when he wondered whether it would ever happen.
Winger Mikey Johnston replaced Furuhashi against Hibs but had to leave the field himself
Ironically, he announced his arrival as a Celtic player at Easter Road in February.
The striker scored twice that night and would go on to score nine goals in an impressive loan spell, including the cup final winner at Hampden.
Yet despite making it clear to Norwich that he wanted to return to Glasgow permanently – and even facing disciplinary action after refusing to play in a friendly against Hoffenheim – he played half an hour as a substitute at Oxford on Saturday as the English Championship got underway.
The Irish international did everything he could to secure the transfer he wanted. But until Celtic finally agreed to Norwich’s valuation last night, he remained in the most enviable position. Others may not have been so patient.
While every club has the right to negotiate hard, few clubs turn routine transactions into heroic acts like Celtic.
There is something astonishing about this, given the club’s poor financial health. At last count, there was £67m in the bank. There is a cheque in the post for £40m for guaranteed Champions League entry, and potentially more than £25m if Matt O’Riley moves to Atalanta.
Celtic have strengthened their goalkeeping department with the addition of Schmeichel (above) and Sinisalo
After sharing “the frustrations of supporters” following a disappointing January transfer window, the club told the stock exchange last week it expected “significantly higher” profits than when it released its financial results for the year to June 30 in September.
Celtic have never been so adept at making money, and giving it away fairly has never seemed so difficult.
In the days following the January transfer window’s closure, which saw only Idah and Nicolas Kuhn arrive on loan, Rodgers called on the club to be ‘braver’.
In other words, more players in the £6m plus bracket like Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers. Fewer of the raft of cheap points that arrived last summer.
Idah falls into the first category, but his arrival will not prevent questions being asked about the way the club is currently conducting its business.
In May, Mark Lawwell and Joe Dudgeon left their recruitment posts, with South America specialist Mark Cooper coming on board, but key positions remain vacant.
O’Riley has been the subject of transfer interest all summer and is expected to leave shortly
That would be less of a problem if the key figures at the club – Rodgers, chief executive Michael Nicholson and majority shareholder Dermot Desmond – had jointly identified and recruited targets of the required quality.
Despite the Idah deal, far too much pollen has blown across Kerrydale Street this summer.
The club seems well-placed to continue its dominance in the domestic league, but will need to make a number of big signings before the end of the season on August 30. Only then will the Champions League become an adventure to quickly forget.
Nicholas Kuhn started his career at Celtic slowly but is now showing real signs of promise
When asked about progress in Europe ahead of the new season, Rodgers mentioned the aim of reaching the play-off round of the new 36-team competition.
He made the claim three days after he warned of the dangers of being caught ‘sneaking about’ on the transfer market.
The signing of Idah at least suggests that Celtic have finally woken up. But it remains to be seen whether they are serious.