Brendan Rodgers has revealed that Declan Rice was a transfer target in January 2017.
The Irishman was in his first season as Celtic boss with the team unbeaten in the SPFL and lifting the League Cup by beating Aberdeen in December at Hampden.
Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair were the star signing in the summer, making less of an impact were Dorus de Vries and Cristian Gamboa.
Rice turned 18 in January 2017, making his EPL debut in May then going on to start 15 EPL matches and come off the bench 11 times in the 2017/18 season as he set out on the path that led to a £102m move to Arsenal.
Reflecting on the January 2017 near miss, Rodgers told The Sun:
Deals can often be complicated, and things that might have been there for three or four months can fall away.
That’s the challenge. It only takes one injury for a player who was lined up to come in.
I remember when I was here the first time, we spent about three months looking for Declan Rice to come in.
He was all set to come and all of a sudden they had an injury, he stayed and got in the team and the rest is history. That’s not the club’s fault. It’s just the way it goes.
We have a number of positions we want to prioritise. There are other positions where we won’t be able to do anything until the summer.
But we want to improve the squad, and the club are very happy to support that.
During the 2016/17 season Rice played six times for the Ireland u-17 side, an area that Celtic have regularly scouted players from such as Luca Connel, Lee O’Connor and Jonathan Afolabi who all joined the hoops in the summer of 2019.
.Eboue Kouassi was Celtic’s only signing in January 2017, picking up malaria soon after arriving in Scotland and failing to make an impact on the Invincible side.
In the summer of 2017 Celtic signed Olivier Ntcham from Manchester City to play in central midfield, in the Rice/Kouasi role.
All of a sudden … He turned his back on Ireland.
What would we have done with Declan Rice?