Celtic January transfer window 2023 assessed

Generally, those are the terms used to describe the January transfer window. Indeed, just last week, Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish used the first of those adjectives to describe this particular window.

He said the two timeframes that tend to be the most treacherous for buying clubs to "get the right deals" are mid-season and after a World Cup. Both of those situations collided this winter due to the unusual timing of Qatar 2022.

Yet Celtic have conducted themselves with a clarity fully becoming the big club status it seeks to restore on the European stage by swiftly, decisively and proactively concluding deals without overpaying and, more importantly, without weakening their overall position with a treble and Champions League qualification in the offing. 

It has not always been thus at Parkhead.

We are not so far removed from the January transfer windows where stop-gaps and short-sightedness reigned on Kerrydale Street.

Whether pointless and fruitless loan signings like Jonjoe Kenny in 2021 - a campaign in which, abhorrently, the team that finished the season contained three loanees in the regular back four - or the odd Andrew Gutman/Manny Perez window a couple of years prior, most fans and no shortage of pundits have episodes they can point to if they wanted to reinforce that.

It's not always been the failures of those who arrive either, sometimes what sticks in the craw is who the club didn't sign. Steven Fletcher in January of 2009 is one such example those of a certain vintage will remember vividly.

To focus too much on those would be unfair though. The club has made some massive signings in the winter window over the past two decades.

Kris Commons, one of the best goalscoring midfielders in club history; Mikael Lustig, who won the lot multiple times, became a cult hero and, briefly, a member of the constabulary in the process; Barry Robson, who essentially won Celtic one of the most impressive and poignant titles in recent memory; Leigh Griffiths, the only Celt not named Henrik Larsson to hit 40 goals in a single season this century. 

It is, then, disingenuous to suggest the winter window is usually a bust for the hoops. 

But the last two have still felt different. Last year the January window became a misnomer when Reo Hatate, Yosuke Ideguchi and Daizen Maeda were all announced before the calendars in the Lennoxtown offices had been flipped over to 2022. Matt O’Riley joined for around £1.5m a few weeks later in what will, you imagine, go down as a superbly shrewd piece of business. 

The 2023 iteration is, perhaps, even more impressive in context. 

It would be easy to assume a club in a dominant league position and a foot ready to be planted in the turf of the season’s first cup final would be happy to just plod along through the month without too much hassle. But this wasn’t simply plodding along, it was building toward better.

The easy path for a club without a coherent identity in the market would be to allow itself to be enticed into the World Cup transfer bubble. As Parish said, the January window is considered notoriously difficult to get true value for money in at the best of times. 

Celtic do have a coherent identity now though.

"We have a pretty clear methodology around the way we play and our culture," Ange Postecoglou said just a few days ago. "We kind of picture the guys in here I have said before it is not just about selecting good players but also specific types. I think we have been really good, in terms of the player and the person, at identifying people who will fit in here.

"It is not an exact science but, for us, we have a real template for what we want and that helps minimise the risk we take in terms of bringing people in."

And so to the crux of the matter: where do Celtic stand now that the window is shut? Are they in better shape? Worse? About the same? 

Much of that will be subjective and depend largely on how quickly and how well the new signings settle in as well as how much those who departed are perceived to be missed. 

From a squad quality point of view, here are the depth charts for the end of the summer window and then the end of this one:

note: don't read too much into Jota and Maeda's choice of wings, they're essentially interchangeable

In terms of contracts, well, as I'm fond of posting on Twitter during transfer windows, security is underrated.

Joe Hart's deal ends in 2024 alongside David Turnbull, Scott Bain, Ismaila Soro, Albian Ajeti and Vasilis Barkas. With a long-term Hart succession plan one of the major questions this summer, only Turnbull's deal is a problematically short one.

Kyogo Furuhashi, Greg Taylor, Anthony Ralston and James Forrest all expire in 2025 while the best reading is surely in the 2026 and 2027 columns; that's where the likes of Callum McGregor, Liel Abada, Reo Hatate, Matt O'Riley, Daizen Maeda, Jota, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Sead Haksabanovic all reside.

At this juncture in the Postecoglou process, Celtic will be in a semi-constant state of flux when it comes to personnel. Clubs will covet those who shine and the task will always be to invest in their replacements wisely, swiftly and efficiently.

So swapping Josip Juranovic, Giorgos Giakoumakis and Moritz Jenz for Alistair Johnston, Oh Hyeon-gyu, Tomoki Iwata and Yuki Kobayashi while removing Oliver Abildgaard from the wage bill as well?

Whether you consider that improving, declining or simply standing Pat, perhaps the club’s mightiest takeaway from this most beguiling of winter windows is this: they continued to act like Postecoglou’s Celtic throughout it.