He's been hanging around Murrayfield long enough to know a hospital pass when he sees one.
Suffice to say, Dominic McKay must have some proper shaped balls about him to agree to take on the gargantuan task Peter Lawwell is about to leave behind at Parkhead.
The sourcing and then appointment of a new manager is demanding enough for any chief executive, even at the best of times.
And these could hardly be further from them.
Yet somehow, in the space of just a few weeks before the start of next season, McKay is also going to have to rebuild an entire first-team squad while overhauling the structure of a club and most probably identifying a director of football as well as a head of recruitment.
In other words, he’s going to need the wisdom of King Solomon and the luck of a lottery winner to get all of these huge calls right at the first time of asking.
The scale of his first-ever to do list will all but guarantee McKay an uncomfortable settling in period to his stint in Celtic’s big leather seat.
So the sooner the club stump up to release him from his contract at the SRU, the better chance McKay might have of putting his plans in place and winning over a support which is now in full-scale rebellion.
It’s a tough crowd, just ask the last guy.
On top of all that, McKay will also have to contend with a nagging suspicion that he may have been hand picked for the position by the very man who is about to vacate it.
Given the strained state of Lawwell’s relationship with the club’s supporters coupled with a recent catalogue of horrible decision-making, that’s far from an ideal starting point.
Lawwell and McKay have enjoyed a healthy relationship for some years now and, most recently during lockdown, they have been working hand in glove in an attempt to convince government that supporters can eventually be safely returned to their
respective stadia.
But that there is a mutual respect between both men ought to be regarded as a resounding endorsement of McKay’s credentials rather than any cause for concern.
Celtic’s supporters may have fallen out of love with Lawwell but, at the very least, they ought to know by now that this is a man who does not suffer fools gladly.
That he has such strong faith in McKay is a sign that Celtic’s fortunes will be passed into a safe pair of hands.
Also, the club’s sugar daddy Dermot Desmond will have had to be convinced by McKay’s strategic planning for the club and the Irishman has clearly liked what he’s heard during a series of Zoom calls between the pair.
So why wait until July to start implementing them? McKay once crossed the Atlantic on a small yacht so it seems reasonable to assume he’s not scared of a challenge.
Even so, this one is going to take some doing now Celtic’s spine appears to have been shattered from the top down.
That Lawwell has opted to abandon ship rather than dig in for the fight is another indication of the dreadful state this club has got itself into.
Granted, he may well have been planning his abdication for a long while but the timing of his announcement merely adds to the malaise as well as the sense that this is a club which has simply rolled over and given up.
Players who no longer wish to be there, coached by a manager who can hardly disguise his disdain for them, all propped up by a CEO who has publicly acknowledged that his 17 years at the helm are over.
It’s almost beyond belief that it’s all about to end in such a catastrophic mess and that both Lawwell and Neil Lennon will leave Celtic as a completely busted flush having given so much service to this club over the years.
Let’s be blunt here. Given what he’s achieved during his time Lawwell ought to be carried off at shoulder height down London Road on a carpet of rose petals.
Instead, he’ll be leaving out the back door under a blanket and all because 10 In A Row turned out to be one too many.
The 29 trophies secured on his watch appear to have been wiped from the memory banks of a section of the club’s support who believed they were absolutely entitled to No.30.
It’s absurd that Lawwell has been effectively hounded out of office but it’s also a sign of the times and a pointed reminder to McKay of what’s about to confront him now that he’s stepping out of Edinburgh’s ivory towers and straight into the surreal world.
Lennon too deserves a happier ending to his own Celtic story but that seems impossible now, especially after the filleting he gave to his squad in the aftermath of Saturday’s abject capitulation against St Mirren.
Where once these players were Brendan Rodgers’ Invincibles, they have become Lennon’s Incapables, apparently unable or unwilling to perform for a manager when he needed them most. It’s little wonder Lennon feels so thoroughly let down.
Yet the man in charge can’t absolve himself from blame.
On the contrary, Lennon has overseen this rapid decline and done nothing to slow it down. If anything, he has hastened it with erratic team selections, not least a pin-the-tail-on-the donkey approach to selecting a goalkeeper.
Worst of all though, he chose to treat them to a trip to Dubai during a pandemic, a howler of a decision which will haunt him long after he is finally released from this current misery.
The question is who will make that call and when? If Lawwell has effectively washed his hands of this season by sacking himself in advance, he has also forfeited the right to put a long-term plan in place.
The shape of this club’s future is for McKay to determine which is precisely why the new man should be thinking twice about hanging around with the Barbour jackets until his contract expires at the end of June.
Celtic are in urgent need of direction and the sight of one chief exec heading for the exit door and another making his way in from Murrayfield a few months from now, will not placate supporters with season tickets to be renewed.
What’s required to get Celtic out of this hole, is immediate action and decisive leadership. Now that McKay has accepted this hospital pass, he might as well get on with it.
