Celtic need transfer stardust from Michael Nicholson as Adam Idah saga means storm could still come - Keith Jackson

The good news for Celtic's simmering support is that their club has finally signed the one player that everyone else always knew they would.

When a deal for Adam Idah was finally thrashed out with Norwich on Monday evening it put to bed the worst kept secret of the summer transfer market and completed a negotiation which was only ever going to end in the manner that it did. With Idah’s return to Glasgow’s east end. All of which is perfectly well and good.

But it also does beg a blindingly obvious question now that the ink has dried on an agreement which might ultimately be worth a combined sum of around £9.5m - assuming Idah scores a hat-trick in the Champions League final while throwing a double six in the centre circle before kick-off. Or something like that. And yet, even though Celtic may never be required to pay out in full for the Republic of Ireland striker, it can hardly be said that chief executive Michael Nicholson has driven a hard bargain where this expensive, particular piece of business is concerned.

So really, it must be asked, was all this cat and mouse saga really worth so much of Celtic’s time? It was widely acknowledged more than two months ago that Scotland’s champions hoped to force the hand of Norwich by landing Idah on a permanent move for something in the region of £4m.

Having failed to hammer out a set price for the player when concluding the terms of his six month loan deal back in the last throes of the January sales, Nicholson and his negotiating team appear to have made an enormously costly error of judgement. In effect, it was Celtic who felt the thumb screws beginning to tighten from the moment Idah began looking like the kind of striker who might belong leading a Brendan Rodgers attack