Matt O’Riley has left the building, deciding that his career and bank balance will be better served at Brighton and Hove Albion, though how he will play for both is a mystery.

The fee is somewhere between 25 and £32 million, depending on who you believe, though we can be sure it’s what the club wanted for him.

We can moan all day about him leaving, but the simple fact is that Brighton have the money and the exposure that is the next step on his career path, and that’s pretty much how we sold the move to Glasgow to him in the first place.

At the time, he was a relatively unknown youngster, second choice to a fellow who went to Midlesborough.

He leaves us as a fine midfielder who we’d rather have stayed.

But he’s gone now, and that’s that.

Most of us are realistic enough to understand the harsh realities of football where this scenario is concerned, and most of us understand that these players, who do get Celtic when they’re here, will never quite have the emotional attachment we have, and as professionals they have a decision to make. Very few will hang around for more than two or three years, and the more frequently it happens, the more we’ll get used to it.

The media, of course, won’t herald the remarkably successful model since Peter Lawwell took the reins, and arguably remains a major influence in these matters…..turning a £38m loss into a £2oom -plus profit over the years, as we see today…

Hugh has called on the Hoops hierarchy to stop stockpiling and start spending

One can only wistfully look back to the last time Hugh offered our board advice…..

I don’t know what I find more laughable; the fact that Celtic cannot find £500,000 from their biscuit tin to sign a proven talent like John Spencer, or the fact that they then spent £300,000 on one of Dr. Jo’s old pals, the unknown Lubomir Moravcik! 

This time round, he burbled;

Celtic launched a new third kit for supporters on Wednesday. I’m no fashion expert but the strip resembles the kind of camouflage outfit suitable for jungle warfare.

Perhaps the club’s board and chief executive Michael Nicholson should use their staff discount and buy a job lot – just in case they need them when the immediate future of Matt O’Riley and Kyogo Furuhashi has been sorted out. Even fans who normally regard any criticism of the club as a violation of the Ten Commandments have now adopted a judgemental attitude concerning the time to be spent between now and the closure of the transfer window at 11pm on Friday.

Celtic may have been voted the best run football club in Britain by the Fair Game Index but a fresh examination of the board’s credentials is at hand. Between noon today, when the defending champions kick-off against St Mirren in Paisley, and the termination of transfer activity until next January, those responsible for the running Celtic will have to prove they are worthy of the people who support the club. 

The tone implies a sense of panic within the club, and among the support. It also implies that the support just ant to see a lot of money spent, regardless of what is actually bought with it. In Keevinsland, money spent is always well spent.

Whilst the squad does need strengthening, the sensible approach is to spend wisely, on players who want to come here in the first instance, and have the attitude required, as well as the talent, to supplement the squad.

And, at the same time, avoid giving manager Brendan Rodgers allowable grounds for assuming he is banging his head against a brick wall and would be better off elsewhere. Issuing an ultimatum is not Brendan’s style but there was an air of frustration when the manager spoke at his press conference on Friday. 

Frustration at the board ? Unlikely, as they sanctioned £9m for Adam Idah, which may yet turn out to be a panic buy, but not an overly risky one. With Kyogo fuhruhashi’s new agent planting stories about Manchester City interest, it looks like he wants one big deal for his client before his shoulder packs in. And if his shoulder does pack in, we needed cover that can hit the ground running, and although Idah doesn’t always look to see which way he is running, he’s proved he can do it, and wants to do it in the hoops.

Frustration at not getting who he wants may not be down to the board.

All that stuff about “been here before,” needing to “shop in a higher bracket” and understanding the “fans’ frustrations” adds up to managerial impatience. How many diagrams does the manager need to draw for his employers relative to the business of spending the money that is reaching an almost grotesque level, while it sits in a club account which appears not to have any withdrawal facilities? 

The reason it’s in there in the first place is because they manage it very well. It’s hard to criticise any part of any organisation that is doing what it’s paid to do, and doing it in a way that is receiving external praise and recognition.

Last week, Rodgers spoke about the advisability of signing three new players for £6million each and, staying true to the club’s player trading model, developing them, potentially, into £30m assets. Then after Celtic’s league win over Hibs last Sunday, the manager borrowed a line from this column when he said his team had to compete in the Champions League, as opposed to simply participate in the tournament as noncombatants, this season. 

If the coach and his team have proven they can buy a player for £1.5m, and turn him into a £30m asset, as they did with O’Riley, then why would they advocate a much bigger outlay for the same result ?

Maybe they have decided that no Scottish player will, at this time at least, ever be worth over the £30 million mark.

And if our strength is in development, then we have to continue with the policy as it is, which means that when a player doesn;t make it here, then the losses can be absorbed.

It’s harsh, but it’s where we are.

I’ll put Celtic’s stagnation in the European arena into a statistically-packaged nutshell. In the last two seasons, Celtic have finished bottom of their Champions League group, accumulating six points from a possible 36 and shedding 30 goals. 

There was just one win out of those 12 games. If no new signings of quality are made between now and Friday, there will be more horrible beatings to come for Celtic in Europe. Should O’Riley and/or Kyogo depart for England, the squad will be weaker than the last two seasons and a bottom place finish for a third successive season is an inevitability before a ball is kicked. 

On the face of it, the squad is weaker. On paper that is certainly the case.

But so far this season, the evidence is that the team is stronger, it’s playing better and there has been progression.

How long, therefore, before Brendan draws himself a diagram outlining the danger of repeating the same impossible task, year in and year out? The sale of O’Riley, let it be said, would be sound business practice, based on maximising the value of a previously unknown player sourced by Celtic from Milton Keynes Dons, a club of relatively modest stature.

But, once that much has been conceded, the question for those masterminding operations at Celtic Park is a simple one..If you don’t want to spend any of the £100million plus that you have in disposable income, what are you saving the money for precisely? 

Hugh , for his own sake, should not do his own books.  There is more expenditure than just buying players. They have to be paid every week, for instance.

What we should also bear in mind is that Lawwell was involved closely with the work that went into the new FFP rules. Maybe there is something coming down the line we..or hugh..are not aware of.

The funniest, and cleverest, line on the radio last week came from the Celtic fan who, by way of tribute to the player’s relaxed efficiency in defence, rebranded Cameron Carter-Vickers as Cameron Carpet Slippers. But therein could lie a less humorous problem. Rangers’ currently parlous situation, unable to bring in new players until they offload others – who won’t go because they’re on too much money – is the definition of a vicious circle. 

Four times I read that. Humour is clearly just an occasional, indeed rare, feature on the radio.

I would suggest there is a feeling within Celtic Park, excluding the manager, that the title-holders don’t need to spend money to finish above Philippe Clement’s side in the league table next May. They may dispute that assertion. The next few days give them the opportunity to rebut the allegation. 

This has long been a supporters suspicion, though if , in the light of day, we think that the manager…any manager…sets up to lose any game, even if it’s against one of the elite, then you’re wrong.

If you think club policy is limited to beating a basket case from over the river, you’re wrong again.

Of all the players who have left for bigger things, not one of them would have joined without the European experience being on the table. The problem is we can;t keep them long enough to build a side that is capable of competing at that level, although we are getting closer.

Celtic supporter frustration has been compounded by the somewhat bizarre performances of “rangers ” in the Europa League, with two appearances in the final in recent years.

That’s what rankles most, when we finally want to admit it to ourselves.

Failure in the Champions League is a given. Failure to win all three domestic trophies ought to be considered as unfeasible as it is unimaginable. 

When failing to achieve a treble, a feat way more difficult than most appreciate, is considered “unfeasible ” and “unimaginable ” , then one really has to wonder if the writer understands what he is saying, or he’s just making noises.

The coming days will be highly informative in that respect. Today’s game will be a test of resolve, as it always is against Stephen Robinson’s side on their own pitch.

Celtic need to set a positive tone that carries them into the first Old Firm derby of the season next Sunday, feeling capable of winning the match by the emphatic margin their supporters expect. Even a draw against Rangers would be regarded as a calamity and Clement would get away with it this time if he claimed his side had won a “moral victory”,

Can you imagine? Not a Rangers fan inside Celtic’s ground.The cash rich against those on the equivalent of income support while they get by on loans. 

I think he’s fallen out of bed again.  Now he’s come up with a worse case scenario that at best is unlikely.

Big Phil would be thinking in terms of an open top bus parade or some other exotic celebration along the lines of last weekend’s dance routine after the cup win over the might of St Johnstone. Unless, of course, Celtic beef up their squad before Rangers arrive on their premises. 

He’s fallen out of bed and rolling down the stairs….Celtic need to buy players before we play them next week ? Has there been an outbreak of monkeypox at Lennoxtown ?

The oldest person in the world, 117 year old Maria Branyas, died in Spain last week. There are unconfirmed reports her last words were: “Have Celtic signed anybody yet?”

If you’re a Celtic supporter, you have to laugh. But if you’re the club’s chief executive you have just six days to oversee the arrival of new signings, otherwise you invite ridicule of that sort. And the time frame is the interesting part.

It took Celtic nearly three months to make last season’s loan deal for Adam Idah a permanent transfer from Norwich City How many truly significant deals can they do in under a week?

The temptation to sell Kyogo to Manchester City might, on a cynical, commercial level, be understandable. A 29-year-old with a dodgy shoulder fetching several times what you paid for him?

Fair enough – but what about the hole he would leave in the squad? Which brings us to the mystery of how much time, and money, do Celtic need in order to move their team forward in a meaningful way? 

At this point, Hugh rolled through the open front door onto the street.

If you find him, please take him home and put him back to bed.

 Celtic are in Paisley today, to face St Mirren. Which is handy, as that’s where their ground is.

O’Riley won’t feature, and we hear that Everton recently had a bid turned down for Tokimi Iwata, said to be around £7m. If he starts today, we’ll know why.

There is also an opportunity for others to claim their place in the first team, such as Odin Holm, Paulo Bernardo and James McCarthy.

Well, apart from James McCarthy, who has decided he’s had enough and gone somewhere else.

That’s three players already on the books who could step up.

They may not be champions league level yet, but neither was O’Riley.

It’s not the ideal way to run a railroad, and there is still room for an upgrade to first class, but the trains are running, and they are doing the job.

On Thursday we had this….

Today