One of the strangest features of Brendan Rodgers’ management of Celtic has been the lack of transfer activity.
The arrival of a new manager is normally accompanied by a raft of new signings as he brings in ‘his’ players. When the manager comes from the monied EPL that seems even more likely.
Strangely Rodgers has generally steered clear of that preferring to work and develop players that he has inherited. The transformation in James Forrest, Tom Rogic and Stuart Armstrong has been incredible.
Some of Rodgers’ own signings have made little impact but the arrival of Dorus de Vries and Cristian Gamboa has ensured that Craig Gordon and Mikel Lustig have upped their game.
After a treble winning season in which no domestic opponent was able to beat the hoops it was going to be difficult to improve on that squad.
Only one major signing was made, Olivier Ntcham and although there has been some lukewarm performances his displays home and away against Astanas virtually justify the transfer outlet.
As well as the summedr signings Tony Ralston, Calvin Miller and Kristoffer Ajer have all had invaluable first team experience including Champions League exposure.
Notable in the list of signings is the absence of any defender. The current run of injuries has been unfortunate but with European football likely after Christmas bringing in a central defender will almost certainly be a January priority.
By the start of next season Rodgers will have five trabsfer windows to shape his squad, as things stand at least half of his team in 2018 will be made up of the squad he inherited from Ronny Deila in May 2016.
