If the reports are to be believed, Celtic are looking again at three players we tried to sign in the summer and are now apparently pencilling them in for January.

This would be so Celtic that it would almost be hilarious.

We fail to sign these guys in the summer because we do not want to pay the money for them. Then, after missing out on Champions League qualification, after being humiliated by the club across the city and after losing three Europa League games in a row, we suddenly rediscover our enthusiasm and decide to go back for them in January.

What is wrong with this picture?

At almost any other club, the answer would be obvious.

But this is Celtic, and somehow things are never allowed to be quite that simple.

To a neutral observer, this must look shambolic.

To people like me, it does look shambolic.

And yet there will still be supporters who argue that if the deals eventually get done, none of the rest of it matters. That it does not matter when they get done, how they get done or what damage has already been caused by failing to get them done when they should have been.

I cannot agree with that.

We would be perfectly entitled to ask serious questions if Celtic went out in January and did what it failed to do in the summer.

There was plenty of time to get these deals done then. Some of these players were linked with us for weeks, if not months.

So why were they not completed? What was the logic in allowing them to drift until January, or even longer, before going back again?

Why do we not just go and get the targets when we actually need them instead of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted?

Because that is exactly what this would feel like if the reports are accurate.

And there is another thing which bothers me about it.

Are these really still the best targets available?

Are we seriously supposed to believe that Celtic have spent the months since the summer window scouring the global market and have concluded that the same players we failed to sign before are still the best options out there?

Listen, these guys were deemed good enough for us in the summer, and I am sure they are still good enough for us now.

But that is exactly the point which pisses me off about this.

Because yes, these guys would improve us.

They might improve us out of sight.

Because only Celtic could do things in this completely backward fashion.

We sign players after the crisis rather than signing them to avert it.

We wait until the consequences have already arrived before addressing the problems everybody could see coming.

And the maddening part is that everyone knew what failure to strengthen in the summer was likely to lead to in the first place.

Would the boy from Torino necessarily have kept us in the League Cup or taken us through in Europe?

There is no easy answer to that. Yes, he would have filled a position where we are crying out for quality, and that would obviously have helped.

But we should never have taken that deal so far only to drag it out and then, even on the final day when most people believed Celtic had to do serious business, allow it to collapse completely.

We left a gaping hole in the team and then paid the consequences for doing so.

To go out and sign him now would be about as Celtic as anything I have ever seen.

And yes, it might appease some people.

But it should not appease those of us who have been questioning this club’s recruitment policy for a long, long time and describing it exactly as we describe it now.

An incoherent mess.

Because going back for players we targeted in the summer and then failed to complete deals for would either be lunacy or, and this is the part which interests me, about as close as you are ever going to get to people inside Celtic admitting they were wrong.

That they gambled. And lost.

There is another thing about our recruitment which bothers me too.

We seem to get stuck on certain players and struggle to let go of the idea.

That is not necessarily a problem if the player eventually arrives and becomes a success.

But one of the reasons people are asking questions about Kasper Høgh right now is that he had been linked with Celtic across more than one transfer window before we finally signed him.

So it was obvious there were people inside the club who really liked the player and had wanted him for a long time.

And when you eventually pay very significant money for somebody you have pursued over an extended period, the scrutiny naturally becomes greater if the player does not immediately justify that faith.

It reflects back on the recruitment process.

On the people who kept pursuing him.

And on the people who eventually authorised the deal.

That is why, if Celtic really are going back for the player from Torino, I do not anticipate us suddenly paying the kind of enormous money some people seem to think will be required.

Because if we were not prepared to do that in the summer, after months of work and when the need was already obvious, why would we suddenly decide that the same valuation makes perfect sense now?

For some supporters, none of these stories has any credibility anyway.

For them, this is just another round of jam tomorrow, another convenient promise designed to calm people down in the here and now.

And I think most of us are royally and heartily sick of that.

Because the jam never seems to arrive.

But if, for once, these stories are true, then our transfer policy looks even more incoherent and stupid than many of us already thought possible.

And that raises serious questions about the people running the club.

Why does so much of our business look like this?

Why are obvious needs allowed to go unaddressed for months?

Why are deals dragged out until the worst possible moment?

Why do we so often end up paying the price before finally deciding to solve the problem?

And how do we still manage to come out the other side with holes all over the squad?

Whatever else happens at Celtic, this is the stuff which has to change.

Because until the recruitment operation starts behaving like part of a serious, coherent football strategy, the team itself is not going to get any better.

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