Rodgers brilliantly demolishes Lawwell’s favourite transfer myth

He resisted use of the word ‘terminado’ but there was no disguising Brendan Rodgers# emotions as he discussed Celtic’s January transfer activities.

With one glaring exception it was a satisfactory Transfer Window but that omission overshadows everything else with knock on effects stretching far into the future.

Five years ago a dismal transfer window turned out to be the final chapter of Rodgers 1 at Celtic, within a month of discussing a million wingers he was at the K Power Stadium as the new manager of Leicester City.

Rodgers was easily portrayed as the villain of that episode but with the benefit of hindsight more and more Celtic fans are realising that little inside the club functions efficiently.

The well worn excuses of the then CEO and his media messengers are equally hollow with the claim that doing business in January is notoriously difficult.

With Peter Lawwell taking a back seat Ange Postecoglou was able to sign up Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Yosuke Ideguchi ahead of January 1. When Riley McCree opted for Middlesborough attention switched to Matt O’Riley who was celebrated in the boardroom as recently as April as he left for Brighton.

Rodgers had a few targets in mind when he met the media on Tuesday with the January myth forensically taken down.

I think that there’s a myth around you can’t get good players in January, which I would totally disagree with. I think you can. In virtually all my career, I’ve got really good players—some world-class players in the January window.

But it’s sometimes about the availability, it’s sometimes about the affordability. And then there is a little bit of a premium in January, of course, in this period where you may have to pay a little bit more, but that’s natural. But I didn’t think there was anything too outward to what would hurt us as a club.

Last February, in the Interim Report for 2024, Lawwell claimed:

The Board’s commitment is to strengthen and improve the playing squad in every transfer window and although resources were available, we were unable to further add to the squad due to the unavailability of identified targets. This was disappointing to us all, and never the intention.

The January transfer window is notoriously difficult as clubs are very reluctant to let their best players go at such a crucial time of the season just as we are. Indeed, we resisted strong interest in our players from other clubs.

Unfortunately there was no sign of resistance last month with Rennes waved a cheque for £10m in exchange for Kyogo Furuhashi.

Rather than cut short his Celtic contract it looks like Rodgers is going to stay around and force change from inside even though the presence of Lawwell and his appointments are evident in every area of the club.

The January Transfer shambles is discussed in depth with the blame pointed firmly at Michael Nicholson and his fellow executives. If you like the content take out a free subscription for alerts on future shows.