Celtic facing transfer jungle warfare and no camouflage will hide board from fans' fire if £100m stays untouched - Hugh Keevins

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.

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.

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?

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