Downsizing is a dirty word in Celtic fandom. It reminds us of some of the worst times in our recent past. Well, what we thought was the worst, until last season intervened.

But, as the analytics page Swiss Ramble has eruditely pointed out, there is a big problem in Scottish football and we are just one (admittedly large) part of it. 

Swiss Ramble has published the comparative financial results of the SPFL as dated to the last financial year, which is to say, the one before COVID and the start of COVID. Not last season, the one before.

In it, there is the usual stuff you might expect: everyone lost money, and those with more money to start with lost more, but also still have more in general. The sinking tide lowered all boats.

Our losses were small, largely covered by the sale of Kieran Tierney, which basically wiped out the £25m operating losses that we run at every year. Revenue was £70m (down from over £100m when we were in the Champions League) and will be much lower now given the pandemic. 

Our commercials have fairly held up: they were double Rangers’ 2019/20 numbers, and in fact, they’re much closer to Aberdeen than they were to ours, though that was likely impacted by the boycotts of merchandise and will now rise given their league title win.

Ibrox revenue rose to £59m, based on better European performances, but will obviously have also taken a kicking due to COVID. The TV deal is still largely rubbish, so us, Rangers and everyone else in Scotland just have to deal with it.

As the numbers are from before the bulk of the pandemic kicked in (and we spent cash to try and win in the ten) it’s hard to discern the impact of COVID, and I’m not sure how much you can read into figures taken largely from before the biggest economic disruption in post-war football history in order to extrapolate them into the new order.

The best I can do is use them as a guide to where we were positioned relative to the rest of the league, and try to use that as an insight into where that standing might be now.

Rangers* lost £17.5 million quid, but we already knew that. Their finances remain a mystery to most, as they pump cash in via endless share issues but never sell any players. Their shortfall is constant, and my best guess is that their eggs are well and truly in the Champions League Group Stage basket at this stage.

Some market-minded folks, like Juco James seem to think that the gap with them is narrowing as they will have got a boost from winning the league and seen commercial incomes rise, though I’m not entirely on that train.

Juco James’ central argument, that we are not as well-resourced as we think we are, might hold water. Celtic had been paying wages as if they were in the Champions League when they were in the Europa League, and that will certainly have come down.

Whether it comes down relative to everyone else, who have also suffered the same losses, is a big unknown, especially in the context of Rangers*, who might have mitigated their losses (to some extent) by winning the league.

I can see how the Ibrox club’s revenue would grow to offset some of the losses that everyone suffered, but not how it would grow enough unless they doubled the size of their stadium, tripled the size of the commercial deals or actually sold a player for once. Their line of credit must be fairly large at this stage.

That said, the numbers predate us burning a load of cash on the Shane Duffys of this world, so it is certainly possible that the wage bill gap has narrowed. 

Wage bills are not the only indicator of success, though historically they are one of the best indicators, and that is where the downsizing element comes in: we can certainly play a lot, lot smarter while using the fact that we can also pay a lot, lot more than everyone else.

The early signs of the Dom McKay era bode well: not so much in that we have signed great players, as that remains to be seen, but more that we have managed to shed plenty from the wage bill, and for cash too.

Dead weight, never-gonna-get-a-game players like Jack Hendry, Marian Shved and Vakoun Bayo are all gone, as are expensive loans like Duffy, Moi Elyounoussi and Diego Laxalt. It’s hard to imagine that they weren’t three of the top wages at the club.

Add Scott Brown, the only first teamer still on Champions League revenue era wages, plus the sales of Kris Ajer and likely sales of Odsonne Edouard and Olivier Ntcham and you’re looking at a serious haircut on our wage bill.

But look again at that list of names and ask how much weaker we got on the field as a result: Edouard, Moi and Ajer would be first teamers, but the rest…dead wages. Whoever we get in will likely be cheaper and more productive per pound spent than the person that they replace. 

Signing the likes of Laxalt and Duffy is the sign of a nonfunctioning system: we went into the last day of the 2020/21 transfer window with no starting left back and had to pay AC Milan wages to sign one. 

Our wage bill in 19/20 was £54m, and likely went up in 20/21. That puts it above Ferencvaros, Olympiacos and Midtjylland, all of whom made the Champions League groups, and plenty of other bigger names in the Europa League as well.

Notably, Rangers* grossly outperformed us on a wage bill that was much smaller, because money was spent badly and in a disorganised manner. This might, just might, be the era of buying smarter rather than spending bigger. Admittedly, we start from a low base, but it might be a start.

Perhaps I’m being optimistic, given that we still don’t have a Sporting Director and nobody appears to know who has the final say on transfers, but, on a base level, I’m a believer in necessity being the mother of invention.

We have a coach who excels in making the best of what he has – working with national teams and under salary caps – and a defined style of play that we can now buy to.

While we have downsized and will likely continue to, we are still larger and better resourced than every club that we need to beat. Ange, I believe in you.

(Once you’ve signed a right back.)