YOU’LL recall that the previous manager warned the Celtic support not to get too attached to certain players, outlining how the club must be prepared to lose key assets as they adopt an “aggressive” transfer policy.

The ‘model’ (another one of those modern-day football buzz words, like ‘project’) is centred on recruiting young prospects for moderate fees, developing them for a couple of seasons and then selling on for a healthy profit. It’s fair to say this approach has had its ups and downs for the Bhoys over the years, but this week Celtic struck oil.

Portuguese winger Jota, who only spent two years at Parkhead, one of which was on loan, sealed a £25m+ move to Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad. The 24-year-old will be earning a wage packet of around £10m a year – an astronomical figure when compared to what Celtic were paying him.

Some have questioned why a young man with such promise would move to the Middle East, where the standard of football is even worse than the Scottish league. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

The Saudis have unlimited resources and are determined to make their country one of the world’s premier destinations for football.

Just look at some of the names plying their trade over there now - Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Rúben Neves, David Ospina, Kalidou Koulibaly and N'Golo Kanté. Many of these may be in the twilight of their careers and already have enough cash to retire ten times over, but how can they turn down such lucrative offers?

Jota would have been crazy to snub this move. He has only signed a three-year deal, meaning he can earn upwards of £30m and still have plenty in the tank to then come back to Europe and make his mark in a top league. He was a big hit with the Hoops, contributing 28 goals and 26 assists in 83 games, and was always a standout performer in the Champions League and Europa League.

Off the field, he endeared himself to the Celtic faithful, always happy to pose for photographs and even randomly popped up in Celtic bars around Glasgow. Both parties have done well out of this deal and leave on good terms, which is always the ideal outcome.

The most important thing now, though, is where the Bhoys go from here.
Financially, they’ve never been in a better position to strengthen the squad. There’s no excuse to not splash the cash this summer.

So far, 20-year-old Norwegian midfielder Odin Thiago Holm has joined from Valerenga for an undisclosed fee, followed by Australian international winger Marco Tilio from Melbourne City.

One would have to believe that Holm is the replacement for Aaron Mooy, who’s unfortunately had to retire through injury aged just 32, while Tilio may take the spot of James Forrest, whose days at the top level seem all but over.

As usual, a host of names are being rumoured to join, but there hasn’t been anything concrete as yet in the early stages of the transfer window. Brendan Rodgers has expressed his desire for more pace and power in the squad, particularly for Europe.

The chat (as the Scots like to say) this week was around Fabian Rieder, the 21-year-old Swiss international at Young Boys who’s attracting admiring glances from all over Europe. Celtic Twitter had the club ready to pay £16m for his services, which would smash the current record transfer fee of £9m for Odsonne Edouard.

Ardon Jashari (20), another Swiss midfielder, has also been sized up, as have former Leicester winger Tete and Lille left-back Gabriel Gudmundsson. But the one that made even me laugh was the prospect of a return to the club for Kieran Tierney.

While I would definitely not be opposed to this, the Arsenal man would command wages of at least £80,000 a week and has been tipped to head to Saudi-backed Newcastle.

The next move that looks most likely to materialise is a £2m deal for winger Yang Hyun-Jun in South Korea. The 21-year-old is so keen to engineer a move to Glasgow that he has offered to pay his own salary towards the transfer fee, but his club, Gangwon, are in a relegation battle and don’t want him to depart this summer. Despite this, there’s that hope he’ll become a Bhoy very soon and a few extra quid will smooth things over.

Although the transfer scene is relatively quiet at the moment, expect things to pick up in the coming weeks. Some players have already returned to pre-season training, and two friendlies are scheduled for an upcoming trip to Portugal before the team embarks on a tour of Japan and South Korea.

With the transfer window closing in early September, I anticipate Celtic to remain active right up until the deadline, so there is no need to panic.
The first game of the Premiership season (home to Ross County) is still over a month away. New faces will come in and more may even go. It’s going to be an interesting summer.