Celtic have signed 12 players since the end of last season, but Sebastian Tounekti, Michel-Ange Balikwisha and Kelechi Iheanacho only arrived after the club’s Champions League hopes were ended by Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty.

Many fans feel players such as Kyogo Furuhashi, Adam Idah, Nicolas Kuhn have not been adequately replaced despite the significant profit generated by their sales.

“The statement is an absolute PR disaster,” former Scotland midfielder Michael Stewart said on Sportsound. “Talk about not being able to read the room…

“Of course, they were under pressure and felt like they had to speak but they’d have been better just being quiet than coming out with that.

“At no juncture in that statement did the Celtic board actually say, ‘you know what, it’s not been as good as we hoped’.

“That statement could’ve been one word – ‘sorry’.”

In it, Celtic stressed their healthy cash reserves are “not relevant” when it comes to complying with Uefa’s financial regulations, which was one of the factors they citing as being behind their struggle to sign players.

They said “inaccurate or misleading information” had led to fans demanding clarity

However, former Scotland forward James McFadden says financial complications do not excuse the late nature of Celtic’s high-profile transfer activity.

“It’s not about spending, it’s the timing,” he told Sportsound. “Getting the players in before you’ve let players go is the ideal, but certainly before you play in a Champions League qualifier.

“The model’s been amazing for Celtic over a number of years but this transfer window’s not been good enough, nor the last one.”