NICHOLSON AND DIME

Celtic CEO's strategy of going in low but paying high for Idah is a real head scratcher for fans

- KEITH JACKSON

THE good news for Celtic’s simmering support is their club have finally signed the one player everyone else always knew they would.

When a deal for Adam Idah was finally thrashed out with Norwich on Monday evening, it put to bed the worst kept secret of the summer transfer market and completed a negotiation that was only ever going to end in the manner it did... with Idah’s return to Glasgow’s east end.

But it does beg a blindingly obvious question now that the ink has dried on an agreement which might ultimately be worth a combined sum of around £9.5million – assuming Idah scores a hat-trick in the Champions League final while throwing a double six in the centre circle before kick-off. Or something like that.

And yet, even though Celtic may never be required to pay out in full for the Republic of Ireland striker, it can hardly be said that Hoops chief executive Michael Nicholson has driven a hard bargain.

So, was all this cat and mouse saga really worth so much of Celtic’s time?

It was widely acknowledged more than two months ago that Scotland’s champions hoped to force the hand of Norwich by landing Idah for something in the region of £4m.

Having failed to hammer out a set price for the player when concluding the terms of his loan deal back in the last throes of the January sales, Nicholson and his negotiating team appear to have made an enormously costly error of judgment.

In effect, it was Celtic who felt the thumbscrews beginning to tighten the moment Idah began looking like the kind of striker who might belong leading a Brendan Rodgers attack rather than one not good enough for a regular game at Carrow Road.