Every signing a football club makes represents a risk to one degree or another.

Some of those risks are not immediately obvious. There are players you sign and watch for weeks or months while wondering exactly what you have bought and why you bought them. Sometimes you do not get the answer for quite a while.

Then there are others who arrive and, even if they have not been signed as obvious first-team players, you can see almost immediately that there is something there.

Kris Ajer was one of those who needed to leave the club, go out on loan and come back as a better player. Ryan Christie was another, although I had seen enough of Christie beforehand to think Celtic were getting real quality there.

But the ones who really gladden your heart are the players whose impact is immediate.

Guys like Jeremie Frimpong, who was not being signed as a first-choice player and then made himself virtually indispensable almost overnight.

Guys like Victor Wanyama, who arrived as a raw young player and looked as though he might need time to develop, only to immediately look capable of playing for Celtic both domestically and in Europe.

Those are the signings that make you sit up and take notice.

Those are the signings that make you think somebody at the club has spotted something special.

And those are the signings that give supporters a bit of faith that, somewhere inside the recruitment structure, somebody knows exactly what they are doing.

Which may be the biggest irony of all when we are talking about Callum Osmand.

Callum came to Celtic with a very good pedigree. He arrived as a highly rated young player from England, but it was never automatically obvious that he was going to walk straight into the team.

There has been a lot of criticism of Brendan Rodgers in particular for not immediately throwing him into the side, but a lot of that is revisionist nonsense from people who already hated Rodgers anyway.

It was not immediately clear that Osmand could come in and carry a Celtic forward line, and to have expected him to do that at the point we signed him would have been manifestly ridiculous.

In truth, it would still be unwise to ask him to do that now.

Martin O’Neill made it clear that wide left is not really Osmand’s natural position and described him as a goalscorer. The longer-term question is clearly whether he eventually operates through the middle, perhaps alongside or off a more physically developed striker, rather than being asked to carry the line by himself.

But Osmand is one of those players where it became obvious very quickly that Celtic had something.

There was no long period of doubt.

His impact was immediate.

His talent was obvious.

His first-team status became inarguable almost straight away.

The question was never really, can this kid play first-team football for Celtic?

It was where do we play him?

And how quickly do we get him in there?

We would probably already know the answer to that question had the kid not suffered that injury last season on his European debut.

That must have been absolutely shattering for him.

He had already made a huge impression almost immediately, and then came that Hampden performance against the Ibrox club.

He entered a game that was about as high-pressure as it could possibly get at that stage of the season and not only played without fear, but immediately made the opposition fearful of him.

That in itself was astonishing.

But to show how effective he could be on that stage was even better.

Then, just afterwards, came his European debut and the injury.

That was desperately unfair.

It robbed him of momentum, and it robbed us of the chance to see just how good he could become.

But to return before the end of the campaign and then score the third goal on the final day, the one which sealed the title beyond any doubt, the elation that day must have been off the scale.

And of all the players in the squad who could have scored that goal, he was the one I would have wanted it for.

Not just because it made up for lost time.

But because it showed us that he was truly back.

He is one of those players who plays with such enthusiasm, such heart and such a smile on his face that you know he is loving every second he spends on the pitch.

That is why it was so good to see him back in the side in midweek.

But more than that, it was brilliant to watch him on Sunday in full flow, confidence soaring and doing what he was signed to do: score goals.

And yesterday felt like the final proof of it.

To see the way that kid performed in the first half, to see how dominant he was and how much fear he put into Hearts every time he got the ball, was one of the things that made it such a special afternoon.

Paulina has already written about the choice the manager now has to make on the left side, and Callum Osmand is a huge part of that decision.

And that is about as big a compliment as you can pay him.

You are looking at an established footballer like Jota, then looking at this kid who has barely played any first-team football for Celtic, and it is a serious question as to which of the two should be starting regularly.

But the question is real.

Because what has been obvious from almost the beginning is that we are watching a major talent develop at our club.

And he is only going to get better the more he plays, the more confident he becomes and the more familiar he gets with his role and his teammates.

A fully fit Jota and a fully fit Callum Osmand can play in the same team, but you are probably looking at a different style from the one we are using now.

Right now, I think Osmand’s pace on the left combined with Haissem Hassan on the right gives Celtic about as potent an attacking weapon as you could hope to deploy in the Scottish Premiership.

But ultimately, it will be the manager’s call.

And the good thing is that we have two very fine players.

Either way, I am just glad Osmand is at Celtic.

I am glad he appears to be fit.

I am glad the manager took him off yesterday as a precaution rather than because he had suffered another injury.

And I hope we see as much of him as possible this season, and then well beyond it.

He is one of those players who excites supporters.

He gets people off their seats.

And if Celtic continue to develop him properly, we could have a major football talent at this club for years to come, assuming we are willing and able to hang on to him.

I love watching this kid.

I cannot say enough about how excited I am to see what he becomes in a Celtic shirt.

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