argument that transfer dealings are notoriously difficult for Celtic just does not stand up, period

I read an article by Niall J over on the Celtic Star yesterday, and to be fair to Niall, it was an attempt to be balanced when it comes to the current transfer shambles at Celtic Park.

Unfortunately for Niall, I have to respectfully disagree with all points raised in his article yesterday.

Before Niall wrote that article, perhaps he should have taken a glance across the city.

Because its glaringly obvious that they are having no issue attracting players to Glasgow and the Scottish Premiership.

They look to be immune to the difficulties Niall J seemed to think our club is facing.

Let me put it this way, and this is a very fair question: would Oliver Antman and Djeidi Gassama, if we had secured their services, have substantially strengthened our front line?

Antman made a very good debut last night in the Ibrox side’s 3-0 win over Viktoria Plzen.

There is no doubting he will cause problems for Scottish Premiership sides in the season to come, including us.

So how is it that the Ibrox side were able to go out and quickly identify these targets, secure them, and have them playing and contributing massively to their chances of qualification for the Champions League?

In such a short space of time?

I’m afraid this totally debunks Niall J’s theories in yesterday’s article.

Last week, we were pissballing about in an attempt to secure the services of Jakob Breum, submitting derisory offers for the player, which were scoffed at by Go Ahead Eagles.

In the midst of all this, news emerged that the Ibrox side were interested in GOA’s other winger, Oliver Antman.

GOA made their asking price for Jakob Breum clear to Celtic.

We did not meet it.

GOA also made it clear that they would only part with one of their two wingers, either Breum or Antman.

Which makes total sense, they did not want to be left without two of their main contributors on the wings.

They also had an asking price for Oliver Antman.

While we were insulting GOA with derisory offers for Breum, the Ibrox side came in and did something very simple.

(Photo by Dennis Bresser/BSR Agency/Getty Images)

Something that is clearly not rocket science to anyone.

They offered GOA their asking price for Oliver Antman.

As GOA stated clearly last week, they are not difficult to negotiate with.

Clearly somebody at Ibrox paid attention to that statement, while it looks like we have chosen to ignore it entirely.

After that, everything was wrapped up swiftly and Oliver Antman made an impressive debut at Ibrox last night.

There appears to have been very little difficulty in securing Antman’s services.

So now we have a situation where its unlikely GOA will part with Jakob Breum after Antman’s departure.

If you ask me, the only people making transfer windows notoriously difficult for Celtic are the Celtic board.

They are making something that should be pretty straightforward a hell of a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

The Ibrox side has categorically proven that its actually quite simple in their pursuit of Oliver Antman.

They identified their target, they didn’t mess around, and they offered GOA what they were asking for.

Because clearly they felt his asking price was fair.

All of this was done while we were messing GOA about with offers that were not anywhere near what they were looking for.

That should be a major source of embarrassment to our board.

If we have any chance of signing Jakob Breum now, there is no doubting we’ll have to pay well over the odds to prise him away from Go Ahead Eagles.

Something the board is clearly unwilling to do.

So tell me, who is making what difficult for who?

Go Ahead Eagles made it clear they’re not difficult to deal with.

The Ibrox side have proven this to be the case.

They are consistently landing the targets they’ve identified, with very little difficulty.

Last night, they got themselves 75% of the way to the final Champions League qualification round.

They did that with apparent ease.

We can laugh all we want at their performance on Saturday, but they are getting the required results in Europe.

If they manage to qualify for the Champions League, there is no doubt they will further bolster their squad as a result of the funds they secure from that.

The unthinkable scenario here, and one that should totally shame our board, is that the Ibrox side qualifies and we don’t.

They would have qualified as a result of bringing the players they needed to ensure qualification in.

Whereas we would have failed because we did not.

Because we did not, and we chose to gamble.

Once again, the Celtic board will be the architects of our downfall in that scenario.

While the Ibrox club, which is supposedly in disarray, will have qualified due to proper preparation and effort to do so.

Which club looks more idiotic in this scenario?

The one that is sitting on a cash surplus of £100 million?

Or the one that’s supposedly skint?

And while I understand what Niall J was trying to explain on The Celtic Star yesterday, I just cannot agree with any of it.

The Ibrox side have shown that it isn’t as difficult as people are making out.

Niall stated that not every player is desperate to wear the Hoops.

Fair enough, but it appears that plenty seem to have no issue with wearing the blue of our rivals.

He also said the market for top-tier talent is brutally competitive.

Once again, fair enough, but making a realistic offer for potential transfer targets might be a good place to start when it comes to making it a little less competitive?

As for the financial limitations of the Scottish Premiership?

(Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)

How do the likes of Brugge, Bodo Glimt, and other teams from the smaller leagues of Europe manage to compete respectably season after season in Europe?

Why is it taking people like Tony Bloom to talk up our league and make people realise that it actually has the ability to be bigger than it is?

We impose the supposed financial limitations of the Scottish Premiership upon ourselves.

Simply because we have a board who is incapable of thinking outside a parochial rivalry.

We have always said that being competitive in Europe should be our target.

European competition is where a club of our size and stature belongs.

Funnily enough, it seems our ‘parochial’ rival sees it that way, yet our own board doesn’t.

They stole a march on us with the Antman signing.

If they steal a march on us in Europe because they prepared for it, and we didn’t?

Then our board will have a lot of serious questions to answer.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

A draw that should be a lot easier than we thought, has now become more difficult than we needed it to be.

It should never have been that way.

But it is.

Will we see any further action in the transfer window this week?

I wouldn’t hold my breath….