Celtic must avoid complacency to reap the rewards

The priorities won’t change, the Scottish Premiership title is an absolute must while progress in the UEFA Champions League is a close second.

This time around there’s the added challenge of a play-off round qualifier and that’s essentially the most important couple of matches this side of the Bells.

The transfer window opens in just over a week and we’ll see then if Michael Nicholson has ditched the hitherto ridiculous policy of preparing for failure by not investing in the squad ahead of these games where the money involved is such that every other club will throw the kitchen sink at it in order to reach the group stages.

Celtic got a real taste for the new format of the Champions League in its first season and it would be a massive blow if we trip ourselves up at the qualifying stages against a team we really should beat.

Hopefully we avoid the inevitable sideshow of drawing Israeli opponents and UEFA themselves would surely rather avoid that. The problem that the governing body might have is the number of clubs who might have a problem playing Israeli opponents is ever increasing.

That aside, Celtic has to be ready and if we think back to the rather underwhelming January window we were told that our targets weren’t available at that time but we’d see progress in the summer.

We’ve talked about the impact of increased top level fixtures amid a hectic domestic schedule had on the team once the month after month of three games a week came to an end on that heartbreaking night in Munich.

It has to be said that Brendan Rodgers navigated us through that hectic schedule brilliantly but failed to recognise the overall impact that would have on his players who try as they might, were never able to reach the winter levels again after the Champions League adventure ended.

Like every manager in the competition Brendan Rodgers will have lessons to learn and we are certain to see changes this time around.

The challenge in the league should be greater with theRangers unlikely to be a non-runner in the title race this time around.

Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts are also likely to have stronger squads next season making the standard of the league greater than it’s been for a number of years.

Domestic cups are lovely of course but lower priorities as winning the league is essential and so to is reaching the group stages of the Champions League.

Brendan wants three signings assuming no star players are sold, so if one is sold we need four and so on. These new arrivals must come in as early as possible- no waiting like the bad old days – to see if we make the group stages before we spend.

That was a time too when we here told that every single penny Celtic made would be re-invested in the team. Now we have circa £100m resting in the PLC bank account there’s no reason not to satisfy the wishes of every supporter including Brendan.

Every Champions League club will look to improve and it’s happening domestically too. Celtic must avoid complacency and show outstanding ambition this summer. Then they will reap the rewards.