Brendan Rodgers looked to his old club Liverpool for an example of how to build on relative success.
Last season his successor Jurgen Klopp took them into the Champions League Final and to second place in the EPL behind Manchester City.
It was a better effort than they had managed in the previous decade but rather than congratulate themselves the club opted to strengthen the areas that obviously needed improvement.
Goalkeeper for starter with a then world record fee of £67m paid to sign Allison from Roma.
In 2013 the then Liverpool board decided that they were paying too much in wages for Pepe Reina. They paid the penalty for downsizing over the next five years culminating in the performance of Loris Karius in the Champions League Final.
Rodgers told the Daily Record: “You only have to look at Liverpool who’ve got to the Champions League final then went and invested the money they have to become stronger.
“It’s not rocket science. You have to always guard against becoming complacent and the way you do that is by adding to the squad. There’s players that we’ve kept, but obviously getting other players in.
“But that’s for another day, there’s a disappointment tonight from the players that were here that we let that slip through our hands.”
Celtic have enjoyed success over the last two seasons. Winning every domestic trophy, playing in the Champions League while banking £30m as the value of their players rocketed.
Imagine telling someone in 2016 that £16m would be needed to sign Dedryck Boyata and Stuart Armstrong.
Small investment in January failed to have the desired effect, it appears that that has been held against Rodgers rather than set aside with efforts redoubled to bring in decent quality for the summer Champions League qualifiers.
This morning Celtic are a less attractive proposition to players than they were two months ago.
It will be a harder sell to bring players in, every commercial move will be more difficult and crucially trust and goodwill across the club has been fractured.
Rodgers is in the front line having to pick up the pieces, the focus for failings behind the scenes for an angry support.
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