Brendan Rodgers has exposed how transfer speculation operates.
Over the last seven days Scott McKenna, Yaya Toure, Scott McTominay and James McCarthy have all been linked with moves to Celtic. None of them will be playing against Airdrie United/Clydebank in tomorrow’s Scottish Cup tie.
Celtic brought in three new players during the first ten days of the transfer window but the frenzy is always towards the next signing.
Rodgers has a decade of experience dealing with transfers and knows exactly how the news cycle operates.
“Scott McTominay is a talented young player but there’s nothing to add to that and the same goes for James McCarthy,” the Celtic boss told the Evening Times. “Agents will strategically throw out a name to stick in the papers but then I’ll get a call from them asking me if I’m interested in the player because they read that I was; you know the game.”
Midfield seems an unlikely area for Celtic to be strengthening with a multitude of options available.
Ryan Christie has emerged from the fringes this season, Scott Allan’s pre-contract deal with Hibs will have no impact on the squad which also has the rarely used summer signing Youssouf Mulumbu to call upon.
With Mikael Lustig and Cristian Gamboa out of contract in the summer a new right-back would appear to be the transfer priority with Anthony Ralston ready to battle for a first team place.