Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain at Celtic: Is the former Arsenal and Liverpool star a signing of convenience or simply a sign of the times?

If we learned anything from Celtic’s latest shambles of a transfer window, it’s that the club’s focus is firmly on the next four months.

The much-heralded recruitment model which has served them so well for most of this century has evidently been binned for the time being in pursuit of immediate success.

And in the eyes of Celtic supporters, that would have been a perfectly acceptable short-term strategy to adopt had the money men opted to blow the dust off the wallet and part with some cash.

It certainly would have gone some way to relieving some of the tension between the two parties.

Perhaps the planned fan boycott which threatens to overshadow today’s Scottish Cup last-16 clash against Dundee would have never come to pass. We’ll never know.

By scrambling around at the last minute on deadline day before signing three players on loan — taking their tally to five for the window — the decision-makers on the board ensured they will have to endure another uncomfortable afternoon at Parkhead.

The 32-year-old has been training with Arsenal in recent months to maintain his fitness

Oxlade-Chamberlain was a firm favourite of Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp

For his sake, you would hope that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain knows what he’s getting himself into.

The 32-year-old is set to sign with the reigning champions over the coming days on a deal until the end of the season, with the club having the option to extend should they see fit.

‘I think he wants to come,’ said manager Martin O’Neill on Friday. ‘I think he’s coming.

‘We might be having a conversation in 36 hours – he might come up here and see what the weather is like and disappear back down again.’

Even for Celtic, that would be a new low. It’s fair to say that the proposed move has raised a few eyebrows on both sides of the border.

Look, every signing is a gamble. No one can say with any certainty whether things will work out or not. It’s a game of opinions, after all. But this one seems more difficult to predict than most.

For a start, this isn’t a player who has been subject to thorough scouting. He isn’t a player whom Celtic have had their eye on for some time.

Quite the opposite, in fact. This is a signing of convenience.

Martin O’Neill has steadied the ship at Celtic and will be in charge until the end of the season

O’Neill signed Brazilian World Cup winner Juninho in 2004 but the move quickly turned sour

It was the same story back in August when, after missing out on everyone else during a disastrous summer, the club plumped for Kelechi Iheanacho as the man to lead the line.

Now, to be fair, the Nigerian has surprised a few people with his performances on the rare occasions when he’s been fit enough to feature.

But the fact is, Sevilla were more than happy to cut their losses at the time and pave the way for a reunion with his former boss Brendan Rodgers. He came to Scotland because there was nowhere else left for him to go.

O’Neill recently admitted he was surprised that ‘The Ox’ hadn’t been snapped up already by a club down south. But doesn’t that tell you something?

Surely he would have been a viable option for a team at the top end of the Championship to take a punt on at some stage? The fact that no one picked up the phone is something of a worry.

On the face of it, the decision to place hope in a guy whose last first-team appearance came for Besiktas back in May seems utterly ridiculous. Especially given what’s at stake for Celtic this season.

Yes, he’s been training with Arsenal since the summer, but let’s be honest, that means very little in the grand scheme of things.

As everyone knows, fitness and match fitness are two very different things. In Scottish football, speed and physicality are every bit as important as ability — often more so. People tend to get found out very quickly.

Kelechi Iheanacho has won over some of his doubters after arriving on a free in August

O’Neill has first-hand experience of this, of course. In 2004, during his first spell at the club, he was responsible for bringing playmaker Juninho to the club.

Having starred for Brazil and Middlesbrough, the World Cup-winner was expected to make light work of Scotland’s top flight.

Needless to say, it didn’t quite go according to plan. He lasted just seven months before departing the club by mutual consent. He would later blame O’Neill’s tactics for his failure to settle in Glasgow.

Arsenal legend Freddie Ljungberg fared no better during a short stint a few years later.

The less said about Joey Barton’s time at Rangers the better, whilst Aaron Ramsay will forever be remembered as the man whose missed penalty in the 2021 Europa League Final killed the club’s chances of lifting their first piece of continental silverware since 1972.

Oxlade-Chamberlain, just like so many before him, will realise very quickly that reputations count for absolutely nothing in these parts.

There are also legitimate questions over whether his body can stand up to the heat.

His career — both at Arsenal and Liverpool — has been plagued by injuries. Indeed, it cost him the chance to play any role in the latter’s run to Champions League glory in 2019.

Oxlade-Chamberlain must ensure that he stays off the treatment table over the coming months

He simply can’t afford to spend any time on the treatment table between now and the end of the season.

Despite the concerns, it’s worth remembering that this is a player who has performed at the highest level. If he was deemed good enough for the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool, then he is undoubtedly good enough for Celtic.

You don’t accumulate 35 England caps without having something about you either.

True, the days of him being able to bomb up and down the wing all afternoon are more than likely behind him. But Celtic don’t need him to do that.

They’ll be relying on his awareness and intelligence to find space and dictate things from midfield, which is in desperate need of a spark.

Reo Hatate is a shadow of his former self, Arne Engels is still searching for consistency, and captain Callum McGregor could quite frankly do with a lie down.

Even if it’s just plugging gaps off the bench, Oxlade-Chamberlain can be a valuable squad player during this run-in, especially if Celtic can extend their stay in the Europa League beyond the play-off round.

And then there’s the O’Neill factor.

The manager has been churning out the same tired lines about potential incomings for weeks now. Even after announcing the trio of deals on deadline day, his frustration on how the transfer window unfolded was clear.

However, the 73-year-old looked genuinely excited at the prospect of getting Oxlade-Chamberlain on board when the question was first posed earlier in the week.

Who’s to say he won’t get a tune out of him? Yang Hjun-Jun, Benjamin Nygren, Auston Trusty, Kieran Tierney — they’ve all improved massively under O’Neill this season.

And Oxlade-Chamberlain arguably has a higher floor than all of them.

For the next few months, Celtic supporters don’t need to trust the board – that ship has sailed.

But they have no reason not to trust the man in the dugout to get things right with the squad at his disposal, Oxlade Chamberlain included.

When it comes to judging a player, there is nowhere else in the world quite like Glasgow.

For many, this signing smacks of desperation. Yet another example of just how far the club have fallen.

But if he can play a part — any part at all — in Celtic managing to overhaul Hearts at the top of the Premiership table, the circumstances surrounding his arrival will be long forgotten.