THERE are still some Celtic fans, a sizeable number in fact, who are frustrated by the Parkhead club's frugal signing policy despite their rude financial health.

You would have thought a glance across the city at Rangers, where directors continue to wrestle with complex problems after years of mismanagement, would make them relieved their own club-hierarchy are so prudent.

Particularly at a time when, due to the prolonged absence of the other major club in Glasgow from the Ladbrokes Premiership, attendances at home games and income overall are down.

But, no, a section of the Celtic support would still like to see a departure from what Dermot Desmond, their majority shareholder, once memorably described as "Mr Micawber economics".

Showing greater ambition and speculating to accumulate by splashing out more money on better players in the transfer market would surely, the agitators wail, result in better showings in Europe and bring in increased revenues.

Appeals from the disgruntled for soft loans to be forthcoming from the likes of Desmond, though, will amount to nothing at a football club which is unrepentant about its desire to be self-sustaining.

Rightly so. The Scottish champions are an example to the modern game due to their ability to achieve success domestically and, to an extent at least, in the Champions League and the Europa League on a consistent basis while living within their means.

Yet, that business strategy, no matter how admirable or sensible, creates a problem for their manager at the start of every season when it comes to qualifying for the continent's premier club competition.

Ronny Deila will be under intense pressure to make it through to the lucrative group stages of the Champions League in the coming weeks as a consequence of Celtic's impressive track record in doing so in recent years.

His predecessor Neil Lennon managed it twice in his four year tenure and memorably made it through to the last 16 - only the third time Celtic had achieved such a feat in their history - in the 2012/13 campaign.

The necessity for the Glasgow club to join the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea in the Champions League, though, was a large contributory factor in Lennon deciding to stand down from his position last year.

The Irishman believed he was taking one step forward then two steps back by having to rebuild his squad with promising players bought within the restrictions of a tight budget every summer.

There could be no arguing with the sale of Victor Wanyama to Southampton for £12.5m, Gary Hooper to Norwich City for £5.5m or even Kelvin Wilson to Nottingham Forest for £2.5m two years ago. Celtic banked a cool £17.2 m profit by offloading three players they had enjoyed fine service from.

However, Lennon then had to go out and successfully negotiate Champions League play-off games against Shakhter Karagandy - including a first leg which required a marathon journey to Kazakhstan.

Having lost the spine of his starting line-up - a centre half, central midfielder and centre forward - was it really any surprise that it took an injury-time goal from James Forrest in the second leg for them to edge through?

"That was the greatest thing I've ever done in football," said Lennon afterwards. "We lost three very important players and it has been difficult to replace them."

But their performances in Group H after that left much to be desired. They finished bottom of their section and missed out on the consolation of a place in the last-32 of the Europa League after only managing to win one game against a mediocre Ajax side.

Virgil van Dijk, who had been brought in from Dutch club Groningen for £2.6m, was involved in those outings. He has developed greatly in the last two years and appears certain to depart before the transfer window closes next month for considerably more money than he was brought in for.

When it happens, that will be another transaction which underlines how shrewd and successful Celtic's recruitment policy is. It will not, however, help Deila satisfy with the appetite for achievement among his side's supporters.

The Norwegian endured a tortuous start to his time in Scotland last year. His charges were thrashed 6-1 by Legia Warsaw in the third qualifying round and only progressed after it emerged the Poles had fielded an ineligible player as a late substitute.

His team's 2-1 aggregate defeat to NK Maribor of Slovenia, limited opponents who had been held to a 1-1 draw at home in the first leg, in the play-off round was utterly wretched.

Deila survived that reverse due to the length of time he had been in charge and things did improve considerably. But he will not experience such a forgiving attitude this time around if there is a repeat of that failure.

He has, so far at least, only lost the services of loan players Jason Denayer and John Guidetti as well as Adam Matthews and Lucasz Zaluska. He has added Stuart Armstrong, Gary Mackay-Steven, Logan Bailly, Derek Boyata, Nadir Ciftci, and Saidy Janko in the last 12 months.

There can be no excuses if Celtic fail to overcome Stjarnan of Iceland, who they play in the first leg of the second qualifying round at Celtic Park on Wednesday, and then progress to the Champions League group stages.