Martin O'Neill's comments on Sam Johnstone may be a worrying clue for the other summer signings we have not seen much of.
Celtic struggled to get business done during the summer transfer window, and they wound up filling their squad with cheap late permanent and loan signings.
The flurry of late arrivals didn't fool many, but it's only becoming clearer what the nature of those signings was. One of the reasons for that is O'Neill's approach with loan goalkeeper signing Johnstone.
Viljami Sinisalo has done a very solid job between the sticks, offering just as much with his feet as his hands, while Johnstone has struggled with his distribution. Still, O'Neill has brought the veteran goalkeeper in for the last two games, and he is promising to give him more time despite having no real reason to drop Sinisalo.
He said this week: "I would like to know what Sam can do, and I think this is the whole point I know exactly what Sinisalo can do now. He stepped into the breach last year and did brilliantly for us.
"And I'd like to know so that in the next few weeks. And it would be nice for him to make my mind up about exactly what's in front of us between now and the end of the season."
While that approach may be used as an explanation for the goalkeeper situation, one does have to wonder why it doesn't apply to any other position in the team.
If O'Neill needs to see what he has in Johnstone during games, why does he not need to see Jordan Lotomba play at right-back? Why haven't we seen Landon Emenalo at left-back? Oliver Sorensen hasn't had a run of games in a midfield that has struggled, and Shim Mheuka has only been given cameos to work with.
Digging a little deeper, you wonder whether O'Neill doesn't trust those players, or whether he is simply applying a very different logic to his outfield players. The goalkeeper position may be the most important of all, so it's not as though O'Neill can take liberties there but nowhere else.
Whether those players should be given a chance if they are not showing that they are good enough in training is another question, but then we haven't seen anything from Johnstone even in games to suggest he is better than Sinisalo. If anything, to the contrary.
Either O'Neill is showing Johnstone too much respect because of his age and reputation, which may be partly true, or the late summer signings just aren't good enough, and that seems more likely.
The Bhoys struggled to hide the quality of their late business at the time, and nothing since then has suggested any different. The Bhoys brought in squad fillers.
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