We have to be braver with transfers- Brendan Rodgers’ ominous warning from February 2024

Twelve months ago Brendan Rodgers was coming to terms with another frustrating transfer window while the Celtic suits congratulated themselves as turnover and profits soared.

Following the disastrous summer 2023 Transfer Window supervised by Mark Lawwell there was a number of gaping gaps in the Celtic squad.

Left-back was a long running sore with no competition or cover to Greg Taylor, on the wings Marco Tilio, Luis Palma and Yang Hyun-jun were a massive drop down from Liel Abada and Jota.

Carl Starfelt had been sold but with Gus Lagerbielke and Maik Nawrocki failing to impress Liam Scales came to the rescue while Cameron Carter-Vickers struggled to get over a series of injuries.

Oh Hyeon-gyu had failed to provide the sort of goals and threat carried by Giorgos Giakoumakis leaving Kyogo Furuhashi as the only striker at the club.

Rodgers had soldiered on through the first half of the season, he knew the areas that needed strengthened but was short changed by the Recruitment Team when the transfer window opened up.

Nicolas Kuhn arrived to provide a genuine threat from the right wing, on Deadline Day Adam Idah was signed on loan from Norwich without an option to convert the deal to a permanent move.

Rodgers had tried his best to be diplomatic, his requests were ignored, from February onwards he had to get a tune out of a squad that totalled at best 14 capable players.

Reflecting on the January 2024 Transfer activity, STV reported the Celtic boss saying:

I would go with supporters thinking we could maybe be a little bit braver in terms of bringing in another level of player but that’s up to me to try and fix over the course of my time here.

But you look at the strategy here and you have to be careful because in some ways it has worked. You bring in players for a minimal fee and then they go out and make the club a lot of money.

What I want to hopefully balance in my time here is that we can still do that, because it is an important part of the modern game, but we also want to be brave enough to hang our hat on a ready-made player.

So I totally understand the support but likewise that player has to be available.

Now, we bring in someone like Adam, who is a big, big talent, now that might be someone who come the summer who will be that type of player, but we get the chance to see that.

Rodgers will be back in front of the media at lunchtime today, after signing Jota and Jeffrey Schlupp he has to go into the remainder of the season without Kyogo and Alex Valle.

It appears that his plea for the club to be braver has been ignored, halfway through his three year contract he is bound to be thinking if there is any point trying to arm-twist the Celtic board into showing a flicker of ambition to improve on being a few points ahead of their toiling city rivals at Ibrox.

Picture by Getty Images

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