No club on planet football does pre-season or transfer windows like Celtic. They are in that respect: 'A club like no other'.

The Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup double winners from last season are about to embark on another domestic campaign with the 2024/25 season almost upon us. The mood music is good...or is it? 

Fresh from a three-game tour of the USA where they reeled off three impressive wins scoring 12 goals in the process - including four against English Premier League heavyweights Manchester City and Chelsea - there is every reason to be optimistic about the season that lies ahead.

Brendan Rodgers's side played a fluent brand of joyful, attacking football that pleased the supporters no end. It was 'The Celtic Way' characterised by what yours truly termed the three P's - pace, power and penetration. Multiple choice answer E all of the above were present Stateside as Celtic enjoyed their finest pre-season build-up to a campaign since former defender Tony Mowbray was at the managerial helm.

Kasper Schmeichel looks like the safest hands in soccer, Matt O'Riley was imperious, Reo Hatate was excellent, Kyogo Furuhashi has rediscovered his zest for scoring goals and German winger Nicolas Kuhn looks like he could be about to take Scottish football by storm. Despite all of this there are still isobars of depression and dark clouds hanging over the club.

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Celtic should be going into Sunday's flag day with the biggest spring in their step ever under Rodgers. The rest of Scottish football should be afraid, very afraid. The headlines should be all about who and if any club in Scotland can prevent Celtic from completing another clean sweep and scooping their 13th title in 14 years.

Rodgers nor his players will ever admit it publicly but in the dressing room, the current Celtic side will be targeting another domestic treble. The talk should also be focused on the new recruits that Celtic have signed in the summer. Up until this point, just Schmeichel and fellow No.1 Vijami Sinisalo have arrived for the princely sum of £1 million.

There is a surplus of cash in the club coffers that much is true but as we reach the start of August and find ourselves days away from the first game of the Scottish Premiership season Celtic have signed no outfield players. No outfield players. It's worth repeating.

Granted there are four weeks to go until the transfer window shuts and hope springs eternal. Rodgers and the Celtic hierarchy can still turn this around and make it a stellar window. After all the Irishman is trying to construct something special in G40. If he is allowed to that is.

However, nobody seems to self-sabotage like Celtic.

Self-sabotage: 'When people do (or don't do) things that block their success or prevent them from accomplishing their goals.'

Is someone or something at Celtic preventing Rodgers from accomplishing his goals?

Rodgers fully expects the club to be busy in the next few weeks in terms of incomings. He said so himself after going public on his transfer summit with Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay last week when the club were in the United States.

The 51-year-old said: "I had a long meeting with Michael (Nicholson) and Chris (McKay) today, so we know the targets we want to bring in. There’s still a long way to go in the window. I think my concentration is that we know what we want to do, and we know the priority positions that we want to improve.

"Whilst the club gets on with that, myself and the coaches were really focused on the improvement of this team physically, tactically and technically. So at some point before the end of August, I would expect us to have the players we want in.

“I’ll make it clear to the Celtic supporters, we know where we want to improve the squad, we want to get better, we don't want to stand still and by the end of the window shutting, I would expect us to be that.”

It was a warning shot over the bow to those upstairs. There was no grey area. Celtic midfielder O'Riley has been the subject of intense speculation with Italian side Atalanta and Southampton chancing their arm with lowball offers for the Danish international's services so far. Rodgers is relaxed about it all and the club has placed a £30 million plus evaluation on their prized asset and so they should.

(Image: Craig Williamson - SNS Group)

However, Rodgers now finds himself in another transfer movie which is going to give him a headache that he can well do without. Hatate is allegedly the subject of a big-money bid from English Premier League side Leicester City. The Japanese playmaker missed most of the last campaign through injury. He is a talented player but he is not at the same stage in his development as O'Riley.

Celtic wouldn't contemplate selling both O'Riley and Hatate in this window - would they? Who would sanction such a move? Certainly not Rodgers. Those above him? That's not so cut-and-dried, is it?

Rodgers is well aware of the Celtic selling model. Which is the club need to resist overtures for their midfield duo for at least another year. Although the wheels on the O'Riley runaway train appear to be in motion. It is up to interested suitors to come up with a figure that the Celtic board feel they need to mull over.

There will be many among the Celtic faithful who will subscribe to the notion that they are living on borrowed time with O'Riley and will enjoy him whilst they still can. The exact opposite can be said of Hatate. Hatate sees his future away from Glasgow that much is true and maybe the player feels that he should be plying his trade in one of the so-called bigger leagues in European football. He has to earn that right first.

Hatate should probably have been cast in the O'Riley role. He is the player that clubs should have been battering down Celtic's door to sign by now. However, his development and progress have stalled for whatever reason. Injuries last season did not help him either. The 26-year-old has still to convince interested parties that he is worth shelling out multi-millions for.

The talent is most definitely there. He showed it in abundance against Manchester City and Chelsea on the Stateside tour but that's only after Rodgers called him out on some of the deficiencies in his game and therefore got his claws into him and educated him on where his game was going and how to get it back on track.

If the US tour is anything to go by then Hatate has knuckled down and is not giving the ball away cheaply and erratically as he once did. Rodgers has clearly had a word and the player is intelligent enough to have taken that observation or perceived criticism on board and done something about it.

There have been sporadic moments of brilliance from Hatate since he joined Celtic - his howitzer against Hearts, his brace against Rangers on his Glasgow derby debut, his display against Real Madrid, as well as numerous goal contributions for teammates in big matches. In isolation, it all looks wonderful but consistency has been the midfielder's main problem.

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Hatate has yet to have a stellar season like O'Riley did in the 2023/24 campaign where he tied with Kyogo as the club's top scorer on 19 goals as well as providing 18 assists. Those figures are not out of Hatate's reach but they are the kind of statistics that get you noticed and earn you a big move.

Hatate, like O'Riley, seems perfectly happy to be at Celtic for the time being but the wages on offer south of the border and in European football's main leagues can turn heads. It is also worth noting that Hatate's compatriot and close friend Kaoru Mitoma is also ripping it up with Brighton and Hove Albion and the Celtic player may feel that his own career trajectory has been a slow burner compared to Mitoma's meteoric rise in top-flight English football.

Hatate has not been the midfield lynchpin for Celtic that he once was when he arrived in Scotland under Ange Postecoglou It would be unfair to say he has regressed but he has not progressed the way most would have predicted. Although Hatate's performances over in America were full of promise as showed that he can easily be a key component of Rodgers's slick Celtic team moving forward.

A breakout season for Hatate with Celtic just like the one O'Riley has just enjoyed would see his value soar as well as prove to clubs that he is the real deal. That situation is a no-brainer and win-win for Celtic and Hatate. With all due respect, Hatate should see his future lying at a club much higher in the football chain than Leicester City. He is, of course, contracted to the club until 2028, so Celtic holds a lot of ace cards in terms of any transfer deal being struck. 

Celtic have been accused of being slow and idle in the transfer market this summer thus far. The long protracted saga and deal to sign Portuguese midfielder Paulo Bernardo is quite literally inching forward day-by-day depending on which media sources you get your information from. Republic of Ireland hitman Adam Idah continues to tease the Celtic supporters with cryptic messages and emojis on social media leaving everybody utterly exasperated as to what the hold up is in signing a player that Rodgers covets.

The Hatate transfer circus as we enter the last few weeks of the window is something that Celtic can well do without. Ironically the biggest statement of intent would be for Celtic to keep both Hatate and O'Riley for another campaign at least. There are not many clubs that can offer top-level football on the greatest club stage of all - The Champions League. O'Riley and Hatate are well aware of that. By stark contrast, other clubs can offer wages that dwarf what Celtic can pay and blow them out of the water.

(Image: Craig Foy - SNS Group)

Rodgers would be loathe to sanction the sale of either O'Riley or Hatate this season. He is also a realist. The smart money is on the former being the sacrificial lamb that the Celtic hierarchy sells to help top up the rainy day fund. As for Hatate. Leicester City can wait. Every team can wait. As a footballer, he is still a class act who is not for sale.

Celtic should not countenance any further sales, especially Hatate, if O'Riley is allowed to leave the building. Rodgers doesn't strike me as a self-saboteur. Can the same be said for those who sit in the Celtic boardroom? It's time they backed their manager and brought in the quality that he so desperately craves before the August 30 deadline.

That's why selling both O'Riley and Hatate in the same transfer window is utterly inconceivable. It would also be totally unforgivable in the eyes of the Celtic supporters. An act of self-sabotage wouldn't even begin to cover it.

If Celtic truly are a 'big club' then it's high time for the club's hierarchy to show real ambition and start acting like one. Having just completed a wonderful preseason trip Stateside it is probably apt to borrow an Americanism with regards to O'Riley and Hatate.

The sign says: 'Don't Walk'. The Celtic board has 30 days to comply.