There's been something approaching consensus among the myriad of takes on Ange Postecoglou that may just render them all moot in the end.
Time.
Celtic have already frittered away far too much and their new managerial frontrunner will likely need more than he's about to be afforded.
The current Yokohama F. Marinos manager is yet to set foot in Glasgow and it could be "several weeks" until an arrival upon which he'll be ushered into 10 days' self-isolation.
Those were the noises emanating from anonymous, ominous "UEFA spokesperson" on Thursday morning, adding to the ever heightening deck being stacked against Celtic's Eddie Howe contingency.
Postecoglou, having only managed once in Europe back in 2008, does not hold the requisite Pro Licence coaching badges and Celtic have been instead applied for an exemption based on his extensive managerial experience.
It's the kind of red tape inconvenience that would barely merit more than a passing acknowledgement had it not been almost 100 days since Neil Lennon vacated the dugout.
More pressingly, in fact, is the 47 days until Champions League qualifying begins; 56 until the new Premiership season commences.
It's a tight timescale even if all the pieces were in place for Postecoglou's arrival but anyone with even a passing interest in Celtic's plight over the past 12 months knows that's not the case.
The club have no captain, no director of football, a new CEO, a recruitment department in need of an overhaul, an increasingly disillusioned fanbase and a squad requiring major surgery.
Key assets such as Odsonne Edouard, Ryan Christie and Kristoffer Ajer look destined to leave, as do others whose time at the club has come to its end for various reasons.
It's why potentially fascinating questions over Postecoglou's credentials - his coaching style, whether he could command the same clout as Howe, whether he will 'get' Scottish football - tick towards irrelevance with each passing day.
Postecoglou undoubtedly has a reputation for winning silverware and improving the teams he manages. He's arguably approaching the profile of boss Celtic should be looking at under the structural overhaul plenty have been calling for.
A head coach with a track record of improving players working under a director of football and a functional, modern recruitment department.
But such a revamp surely needs all the key figures in place to make it work, not just the manager. All of it is still being pieced together.
And that, again, takes time.
Scottish football, to its occasional embarrassment, can take a cynical view of managerial outsiders and while the obsession with "knowing the game" in this part of the world is overblown, it is a simple fact that Celtic and Rangers managers, whoever they may be, generally don't get that time to walk before they can run.
Steven Gerrard has proven an exception to this rule but the circumstances were markedly different.
Rangers were a club building back from the very bottom, not suddenly in inexplicable turmoil following a decade of unrelenting dominance.
Gerrard, despite being a managerial rookie, is one of the biggest names in world football and that, fair or unfairly, tends to buy you more time than others. He was also an immediate upgrade on the disaster that was Pedro Caixinha.
Postecoglou is revered in Asia but an unknown quantity in Scotland. Clearly he wasn't first choice nor, as some had theorised, identified by director of football non-candidate Fergal Harkin.
It all just adds to a prevailing sense that Postecoglou is being set up to fail before he's even arrived.
A sizeable section of Celtic's support feel a widening disconnect with those in charge and the incoming new manager is in danger of finding himself stuck in the middle, through no fault of his own.
His coaching ability and track record elsewhere could end up counting for very little if, as currently feels like the case, he isn't given the best chance to succeed.
He's drastically short on time, Celtic's hierarchy is in flux, the squad needs rebuilt and supporters' patience is wearing ever thinner.
What happens if those Champions League qualifiers come just too soon and all the expected upheaval results in Rangers racing into another unassailable Premiership lead?
All those questions about 'getting it' and whatever else, Postecoglou won't get a fair crack at answering them if things don't speed up drastically.
