3 days ago
The Celtic chief will remain in hiding as the boss tries to deal with tight-fisted change of stance
The club's sequestered leadership will discover that there is no hiding place if Celtic are knocked out of the Champions League
Time's just about up for the men in charge of Celtic 's transfer strategy.
By Thursday night the alarm bells will be ear splitting when Brendan Rodgers has to submit his squad list for a Champions League play-off double header against Kairat Almaty and, at that point, there will be no wriggle room left. No excuses. Nowhere left to turn.
On the contrary, unless they suddenly pull a collection of unforeseen rabbits out of hats which appear not to exist, Rodgers will be shoved out front and centre, attempting to render their inexcusable mismanagement as just some minor misdemeanour.
Yes, the chances are that he'll find a way of doing precisely this.
Scotland's champions may willingly be entering a period of regression but Rodgers remains an elite tactical and managerial performer.
And, true, it's probably reasonable for his paymasters to assume he's got enough talent at his disposal to get through a double header against the Kazhaks of Kairat Almaty, even without a late rush of oven ready reinforcements.
But, given the holes in his squad which remain both glaring and gaping, it's by no means a sure thing.
And, no matter how these European qualifiers should turn out, the man charged with holding the fort is highly likely to find the inaction of his superiors as absolutely unforgivable. And, really, who in their right mind could possibly disagree with him?
So the most pertinent and pressing question in all of this is, where exactly is Michael Nicholson, Celtic's invisible man of a chief executive?
You may just about remember Nicholson from his yearly appearance in front of shareholders at the club's AGM. Even though his offerings are, for the most part, instantly forgettable.
And that's probably the way he likes it.
Nicholson is a reluctant and reclusive leader. So long as Rodgers remains standing there in the spotlight, delivering one title after the next, he may believe there's no real requirement for him to step out of the shadows.
But, ironically, his determination to stay as far as humanly possible from centre stage or to present himself as his club's driving force, could well be about to drag him out into full focus.
If he will not or cannot give his backing to Rodgers then he will have to carry the can in the eyes of the Celtic support when the Northern Irishman decides that his second stint as manager has run its course.
And right now, the catastrophic optics seem to suggest that moment will be arriving sooner rather than later.
Rodgers has long since nailed his own colours to the mast.
On day one, when he began his reincarnation as Celtic's manager, he made a solemn promise that he would not run out on the club and its supporters for a second time, having taken a wrecking ball to those relationships when he left for Leicester City first time around.
He deeply regrets the damage done by that decision. And that's possibly the only reason why he'll be prepared to stick around until his current three year contract has expired at the end of this season.
Nicholson and his board will have calculated - and with good cause - that Rodgers will continue to succeed in his role for the time being, despite the dereliction of their own responsibilities.
They have not replaced Kyogo Furuhashi despite rubber-stamping his £10m sale in January.
They did not have a succession plan in place when they rushed to grab a further £17m for Nicolas Kuhn earlier this summer.
Also, they appear not to have paid the slightest bit of attention to the injury which will keep Jota stuck in the treatment room at Lennoxtown for the rest of this year.
And that's before they grapple with the potential end bringer of sanctioning Daizen Maeda 's sale if, as has been reported, the Japanese international has no inclination to put pen to paper on a contract extension.
Nicholson's certainly not daft. Regardless of the Maeda conundrum, he must realise Rodgers has already been left leafing through limited options and that Celtic's squad is weaker than the manager has earned the right to expect.
But with Russell Martin already making a bad situation worse at Rangers, the bottom line is there is no obvious business requirement for Nicholson and his boardroom strategists to part with the kind of money the manager might wish them to.
Yes, if they're smart, they'll be keeping one eye on the diligent work being carried out at Hearts but, even so, they will believe Rodgers has more than enough to see off the combination of Derek McInnes and Tony Bloom's analytics.
They will probably point to the £26m they shelled out this time last year as a justification for cautiously playing footsie with this summer's transfer market. Once bitten, twice shy appears to be the mantra. And the basic logic is simple enough to follow.
If Adam Idah can't be trusted to lead Celtic's attack despite costing £9m, if £11m Arne Engles has been subbed out of the manager's starting XI to make way for a £1.7m arrival in Benjamin Nygren and if Liam Scales continues to keep Auston Trusty on the bench, then why should they back the judgement of Rodgers to the same extent?
Nicholson could reasonably argue that spending fortunes in order to satisfy the manager's lofty ambitions has come at too much of a cost.
But don't hold your breath waiting for the CEO to come out and state his case.
Rather, it's almost certain he'll remain hidden in plain sight while Rodgers attempts to deal with the consequences of his board's tight-fisted change of stance.
Ultimately, this sudden pivot is likely to convince Rodgers that his own judgement is being called into question in the boardroom and he's simply not the kind of man to tolerate such blatant disrespect.
He already said he's not the man to merely 'maintain' Celtic's status as Scotland's dominant force. On the contrary, Rodgers is striving to drive up the club's reputation across the continent by trading some serious blows in the Champions League.
And, crucially, that's why Thursday's deadline will carry such significance to Rodgers even if Nicholson isn't all that bothered by it.
Celtic will spend and the chances are they'll spend big before the window shuts for business at the end of this month.
But even that would be missing the point.
If Rodgers is left carrying a water pistol into a £40m knife fight against the Kazhaks next week then he may very well reach the conclusion that his own value to Celtic is being disregarded and underestimated by his own bosses.
We all know how that one ends.
And, if that's really where this is all headed, then soon the club's sequestered leadership will discover that there is no hiding place.
