As Celtic moves into the next phase of the managerial hunt, one question is going to loom larger than any other: what exactly are we looking for in a new manager, and what’s the criteria he’ll have to meet? An embrace of analytics will be high on the list.

We already know there are certain types of coaches this club won’t even consider. I wrote earlier about the need for the board to give us hope in this process — to show us something bold and inspiring — but the truth is there’s a reason I wrote that piece, and a reason the tone of it was more a challenge than a plea.

It was me saying, “prove us wrong.” Because right now, nobody believes this board is about to make a decision that’ll make us sit up and think, “Finally, they get it.”

The reality is that whoever gets the job is going to have to accept a serious loss of freedom, especially when it comes to transfers. Celtic has placed an awful lot of blind faith in algorithms, data, and numbers.

The idea is that there’s a scientific formula for football success — that somewhere in all...