Chris Sutton believes Celtic are going to find it hard to convince players to join the club based on their current failures in Europe. The Bhoys have lost all of their first three Europa League fixtures, and two of them at home.
They led in both of those home clashes, including on Thursday night when they scored early in the second half against Celta Vigo. But two goals were conceded in the space of three minutes, and it was a similar tale of collapse in Europe.
The Bhoys now have to find at least three wins in their remaining five games, and they may well need another point to go with that. It's a tall order for a team that cannot seem to beat any sort of decent team in Europe.
And there is a bigger consequence to dropping out of the competition, according to Sutton.
He told RecordSport: "What decent player is going to want to come to a club that is seemingly happy to be European also-rans at best and whipping boys at worst? Seriously.
"There has probably been high-fiving and backslapping in the Celtic boardroom about getting the likes of Camilo Duran and Kasper Hogh.
"But those players were likely signed with the promise of competing in the Champions League – not propping up the Europa.
"And the same goes for hanging on to their decent players. If a big bid comes in for someone like Duran, why wouldn't he jump ship if it's a club that is going places?"
The problem for Celtic is that they clearly lack ambition outside of the Premiership. It seems that the only time the Bhoys want to invest is when they qualify for the Champions League, and if they don't, they are content with simply being dominant domestically, which is usually a comfortable process for the Hoops.
But while there is obviously a difference in profit between the Champions League and Europa League, you have to wonder why Celtic don't have much interest in the latter.
Quite frankly, Celtic cannot dream of getting to the latter stages of the Champions League, but they could realistically progress to the last eight or even the last four of the Europa League with the right sort of investment.
And there is decent prize money in doing well in the Europa League, which begs the question why Celtic seem to strip back when they don't qualify for the Champions League.
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