After losing to Lazio in the Champions League Brendan Rodgers explained that his initial assessment of the Celtic squad was that four quality additions were required.
During the summer transfer window there was a focus on bringing in project signings, most of them never made it into the Champions League squad with Luis Palma the only one of seven permanent signings to have a positive impact in the elite competition.
Many Celtic fans took that revelation as a statement of intent for the January window but so far only Nicolas Kuhn has joined the club with 24 hours left to do business.
Adam Idah of Norwich is expected to sign on loan with very little else happening despite the club being deep in a title battle with an ominous run of fixtures including trips to Aberdeen, Hibs, St Mirren and Hearts coming up over the next six weeks.
Speaking to The Sun, Rodgers explained:
Ideally you want to have players who you know are going to be here for a few seasons to grow and develop but there always has to be a balance between loan players and permanent signings. Permanent signings aren’t always possible.
Having had the experience here before there’s always going to be that revolving door.
It’s not like the old days when you said, ‘Right, that’s the squad and we’ll keep them together for five or six years now’.
That doesn’t work anyway. You have to recycle your squad every three years. You have to.
Even if it was a team that had won three Trebles — on that fourth year you would have to change it because of the hunger. That’s what experience tells us.
David Turnbull appears to be on his way out of Celtic with talks ongoing over a move to Cardiff City that takes away the fourth top scorer from this season’s squad.
On Saturday Celtic return to the pitch away to managerless Aberdeen where the post-window squad will be closely examined in front of the Sky Sports cameras.
? LISTEN: “I felt when I came in the summer that we probably needed four quality players.”
? Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers says the club are working hard to add top level players to their squad. pic.twitter.com/1xwfCY5Zab
— Clyde 1 Superscoreboard (@ClydeSSB) December 1, 2023
So a possible change in tack from Brendan then…
Wonder what his big bonus will be to attempt to soften us up will be !
24 hours to go !
Well, we all like confidence but if it goes t1ts-up and the unthinkable happens, he will carry the can for the free-spending board he has now fully aligned himself with….
As Greek philosopher Heraclitus’ often misquoted observation goes, ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’
There’s pish…and there’s utter pish…BR has uttered…utter pish…When will the support learn…??
He changes his story more times than the recent weather, every time to cover for the ineptitude of the recruitment department and the miserly hoarding of a greedy Board of Directors. It’s obvious where Brendan Rodgers’ first loyalties lie, and it’s not with the team or the fans!
Yes agreed Martin he’s desmond and liewells stooge, remember that pish made up story about him meeting Danny mcgrain,that was Rodgers lying to the fans even back then.The man is as big a charlatan as the rest of the board,he only agreed to come back under the same regime if they paid him enough,I’m sure £3 million is worth selling out for.
Course Rodgers has to defend a transfer strategy he’s very much part of?
The worrying thing I find in his comments is about the 3 year turn around of players?
To myself that sounds like a manager preparing to totally dismantle Ange team and trying to rebuild his own imo?
With Rodgers decision making very questionable to date upon his return, then this situation regarding himself could well turn very ugly indeed imo?
With established players not preforming in general at the standards they have set for themselves with the club, then hold Rodgers totally responsible for that?
In return the newer players have taken far longer to be integrated into the team so far to date imo?
Overall it’s been to much of piss poor management on behalf of Rodgers to date, but luckily for himself he still has the 2nd half of the season to redeem himself?
Not overly confident within him of being able to achieve that, even if we retain the title imo?
Possibly the biggest few months awaits Rodgers within his time spent at the club, wouldn’t like to call the outcome upon his future just yet, but certainly haven’t been impressed with his return either, especially upon his decision making, which could also be very costly to ourselves also?
Splinters in the arse time from the amount of sitting on the fence regarding Rodgers as manager, and swaying towards the anti Rodgers brigade currently, who I opposed at the start of the season?
Ha ha all Rodgers fault, projects brought in with 70M in the bank. No one is buying your bull. CQN might, just a thought.
Talking we’ve been sold down one again.
There seems to be a growing panic, soothsaying and doomsday prophecies from some CFC bloggers and commentators. The manager has repeatedly referred to ‘Quality over Quantity’ and that he doesn’t mean £20M players on club-busting wages (Nat Phillips ?). What is ‘Quality’ ? Some over-the-hill International or a sought-after youth who’d probably play in most games in Scotland (e.g. Lucas Bergvall) ? However, if modern players are destined to be off in a few years this raises the optimum age as well as costs. The club can park fleeting transfer projects, for now (see how the current ones get on) and concentrate on getting the right players in the preferrable Summer Window towards making progress in Europe.
We might well make progress in Europe right enough John S…
But shockingly it could well be The Europa League or even heaven forbid – The Europa Conference League !
John S quality doesn’t have to be 20 million, shankland and miovski would probably cost about 5 million,ok with shankland no resale but he would get us the goals to win the league this most important of years and miovski 5 million he is also a proven spfl scorer,just supposing kyogo gets injured, remember he’s already got a dodgy shoulder,do you think the 3rd choice Norwich striker will be up to scoring for us, remember this title is going to the wire so we needed better than what we’ve got .
Adam Idah never seen him play, 30 odd players in the squad and we’re taking loan player with no option to buy, in January transfer window FFS.
Ching Ching bonus bonus bonus.
My fellow Celtic supporters, take some responsibility for your actions, yous caused this deliberate malaise of the board to set in and fester.
The Celtic board ( the shareholders) Desmond, Liewell and Co are acting out the way you’d expect a board full of “Business” originated individuals to act, they are looking after the financial interests of their investors and lining their pockets at the same time, by taking advantage of thousands of “perpetual moaning” suckers who are easily parted with their money because they are so “faithfully blind”, to the cause, that they cant see the woods for the trees.
Grow a pair, stand up for yourselves for once if yous desperately want to see the change that you desire, take the required action to make it happen, take back control by…. no more money through the purchasing of season tickets and merchandise for the board, starve the board of the onoxygen that they need to breath, which is your HARD EARNED cash
Vincent,
I absolutely agree with you. If the league gets lost to Rangers this season – and there is now every chance that could happen – then your common-sense suggestion is the only way to stop the rot and root out these Board misers, Personally speaking, and I know this sounds too fantastic to believe, I think this Board has an agreement with the Rangers Board not to allow one team or the other to dominate Scottish football too long. If the league becomes a one-horse race then investors in the Scottish game, including sports promotors, are going to evaporate. I would have laughed at such a suggestion myself if it were not for the clearly suicidal recruitment strategy this cash-rich Celtic Board has embarked on.
No one will ever convince me that Rodgers has any say whatsoever on what players Celtic recruit. We saw it when he was manager before (the Marian Shved debacle), and now we have a journalist openly telling us that he had a conversation with Rodgers way back in the summer, at which time Rodgers identified 6 quality players he required to replace Jota and Mooy as well as to take Celtic to the next level. When asked if he had mentioned this to the Board, the journalist was astounded to hear him say “No”.
That’s where we’re at right now and that’s why we have no quality additions. Rodgers has nothing to do with recruitment and hasn’t even told the Board what he needs, much less demand it as Ange would have. If the league gets lost as a result then your suggestion is the only one that will force a change in the Boardroom and a change of manager to someone who will restore Celtic at least to where it was the day Rodgers sadly entered the fray again with all his negative tactics. He has almost destroyed the goal machine that is Kyogo Furahashi.
Spot on Vincent been saying this for months now,it’s the only way we’ll ever get rid of the desmond liewell dynasty.
Exactly, supporters are so easily conned it’s frightening. The supporter holds the power only at season ticket renewal time. A renewal is an endorsement of the board. Recruitment and the refusal to tackle the obvious referee issue says they don’t care about the product or the club, just want your money.
That £70-100M in the bank?
Suppose Desmond decides to
“Walk Away”
at the end of the season?
That is his money because it is his plc Club, or most of it!
So, suppose he just takes it with him!
I don’t think that there is anything to stop him doing it!
Just give himself and his fellow investors a nice big windfall bonus and skidado!?
I hope I am wrong, but they used to call it
“Asset Stripping”!
Buy a company, take all of its assets and walk away!
Skidado!!
Happy Saint Brigid’s Day!
Do not believe a word that comes from Rodgers’ mouth. Since he returned he has been Lawwell’s mouthpiece. Time to go Brendan and take your pals Desmond, Lawwell and Lawwell and Nicholson with you. Only when they they are all gone will the club modernise. Fecking Tory bastards.