Brendan Rodgers is only expecting ‘one or two in the door’ during the January transfer window.
Recruitment has been a much debated issue among Celtic fans this season with a marked drop off in the quality and profile of the players arriving.
In the summer of 2021 Dom McKay and Ange Postecoglou brought in Kyogo Furuhashi, Carl Starfelt, Josip Juranovic, Joe Hart, Liel Abada, Giorgos Giakoumakis, Cameron Carter-Vickers, James McCarty and Jota.
That batch of signings provided the cornerstone towards two years of success but during 2023 a number of those signings moved on with the 2023 intake barely standing comparison.
Luis Palma has been a regular in the side but beyond that there has only been occasional appearances, at different times Odin Thiago Holm, Gus Lagerbielke and Yang Hyun Jun have shown promise but none of them have been able to nail down a regular place.
It is difficult to identify any improvements on last season’s squad, after losing to Lazio in the Champions League Rodgers spoke of wanting to bring in four quality starters but it seems that expectations for this month are being played down.
Discussing his January plans, Rodgers told the Daily Record:
The players will get a little bit of time – they need that. They’ll have a break to maybe spend a wee bit of time with their families.
They’ll have some work they need to do while they’re away but it’s a good chance to reset before going again. We have a spell without any games before we play in the Scottish Cup. So we can do a lot of work in that period.
We’ll hopefully have some of the injured players back and maybe one or two in the door. Then we push on for the second half of the season. There will be no winter break next season and that’s a real shame.
I think if you look at players throughout Britain, and especially up here, you see the amount of injuries. That’s especially true if you’re playing European football.
The players aren’t robots but somehow it’s deemed that they are. But we’ll take the break this season, for sure, and maximise the time to get some good work in.
On January 1 last year Celtic instantly registered Tomoki Iwata, Alistair Johnston and Yuki Kobayashi, Johnston made an impressive debut at Ibrox on January 2.
The previous January window was even more spectacular with Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Yosuke Ideguchi announced as signings on December 31.
With no SPFL matches between January 2 and 27 Celtic fans hoping for an infusion of ready made starters may be in for disappointment if Rodgers is only hoping for one or two signings plus others returning from injury.
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🔊 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
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