Writing a column that's published on the day the transfer window closes is a little like sitting across from my youngest at the breakfast table. There’s a fair old chance you’re going to end up with egg on your face. But just as I do every morning, I’ll take the risk.

Barring some spectacular deadline day moves that would make even Jim White's head spin (and not just because I doubt he particularly wants Celtic to win the league...) the Celtic fans have endured yet another transfer window that promised so much but delivered so little.

It was all about the quality, supposedly. Brendan Rodgers is a savvy operator, so he must have been relatively confident that he would get players into the club in January that would, in his own words, improve his team. Not his squad, mind, his team.

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What he got was a winger of unfulfilled potential in the £3m signing of Nick Kuhn from Rapid Vienna, and the (impending) loan signing of a striker who has seven goals in 34 appearances this season for mid-table English Championship outfit Norwich City in Adam Idah. In short, he appears to have had his pants pulled down.

Perhaps unfairly, Idah is already facing an uphill battle to win over a sceptical fanbase, who will view him as the poster boy for an entirely botched January and as a scrambled signing to try and at least salvage something in the last desperate hours of the window.

With the greatest of respect to these lads, who may well go on and prove to be valuable additions, they hardly fit the criteria laid out by Rodgers of players who would come into the club and be ready to make an immediate difference to the level of his starting XI.

I am trying to resist the urge to use the ‘p’ word that has become so hated by Celtic supporters, but if they are not quite examples of the project player Rodgers has specifically and repeatedly stated he has quite enough of piled up behind the scenes at Lennoxtown, thank you very much, then they are at the very least punts.

Statistically, there is promise. If they can just iron out speed merchant Kuhn’s finishing and final ball, for example, they might have a player on their hands. Idah has shown that he too is a hard-working, high-pressing forward with plenty to offer, but he is hardly prolific, and it is highly unlikely that he will displace even the currently off-colour Kyogo Furuhashi from the main striker’s slot.

If anything, his profile makes it look as though he has been targeted to strengthen the bench and compete with Oh for the role as first back-up. Which is fair enough, but not when there has been such a song and dance made about the need for starters. His injury record too is a concern, missing significant chunks of last season and the two before that with knee issues.

While no transfer is a sure thing, these signings fall squarely into the ‘gamble’ category, and will send the low approval rating of head of recruitment Mark Lawwell plummeting even further. If such a thing is possible.

In fairness to Lawwell, he was always going to be swimming upstream against the tide of popular opinion by dint of his surname alone, but judging him solely on the transfer windows he has presided over, there isn’t much there to mount any sort of a defence.

By putting off problems like the need for a new keeper to the summer, or a left-back to compete with Greg Taylor, or a quality midfielder to replace Matt O’Riley who will surely then get his big move, Celtic could be looking at quite the rebuild in the off-season.

Maybe it’s just as well they still have that £70m stockpiled in the bank account then, because at this rate, they may be facing that task without the guaranteed Champions League money that comes from winning the league this season.

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The Celtic board and indeed their fans and manager may still think that they have enough in their ranks to see off the challenge of Rangers, and maybe they do. But under Philippe Clement’s leadership, it is indeed a challenge they now face from Ibrox, and by gambling on their January business they are, by extension, gambling with the league title.

We should all be wary by experience of narratives around the resurgence of Rangers as a force, and Rodgers made that very point when he reminded us all recently just how many Rangers managers he has seen off the premises.

But unlike some of his predecessors, Clement seems to be quietly going about his business of making Rangers – at the very least - a safe bet to consistently and reliably overcome domestic opposition.

There is little fanfare or hubris, just a focus on improving his team, and he has brought in a couple of players who it seems will indeed improve his own starting line-up in Fabio Silva and Mohamed Diomande.

That bar may be a little lower than the one Rodgers had to clear to achieve such a feat with Celtic, but there will be no unrest detected between manager and board or spin required from Clement when he assesses his winter business over the coming days.

The same cannot be said where Rodgers and Celtic are concerned, and that should be a concern for the club’s supporters.

They may ultimately still retain their title, but through their inaction in this window, it isn't overegging it to say that Celtic seem bizarrely determined to make it as difficult for themselves, and for Rodgers, as possible.