Brendan Rodgers has claimed that there were players wanting to join Celtic during the January transfer window but were denied a move by their club.
Raising the fee on offer usually helps persuade clubs to sell someone that they’d rather hold on to but the claim raises further questions about Celtic’s recruitment strategy.
January 2022 will forever be a window that Celtic fans hold up as what can be done in the transfer market. On December 31 the signings of Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi were all announced, midway through January Riley McGree opted to go to Middlesbrough with attention switching quickly to Matt O’Riley.
A revived Celtic turned around a six point deficit at the start of that window to win the SPFL title with three of those four January signings playing a significant role in the success.
When one transfer window closes a manager can usually highlight his priorities for the next window, it gives the club a few months to prepare to strengthen his Starting XI and the squad.
With over £70m in the bank at the end of June the funds should have been in place to back up Rodgers’ plans but halfway through the window Celtic signed a winger ahead of two going out on loan, with an hour left to do business they signed the striker that made way for Sydney van Hooijdonk at Norwich City.
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I think from the fan’s point of view you seemed unhappy at the summer transfer business. There was a lot of talk about bringing in quality early on and then the January window came and there were various positions identified with left-back being a key one.
Fans are very irate at not seeing that position filled. Can you talk us through if there was a failure there? Was there a failure there? Could you not get the quality that you wanted? Were you not happy with what you were offered or needed? Was it too expensive? Could you elaborate on that and maybe help the fans understand the process a bit better?
We had looked at a number of players who didn’t quite fit or would maybe not have improved what we already had in certain positions. There were others we felt that could fit and there was a real willingness from the club to do business and bring the players but it was the other club. You need that to work both ways.
Players wanted to come here and there were a few that wanted to come but the club wouldn’t allow them to come. We have a number of positions that we want to improve and we want to develop that and what I wasn’t keen to do was bring in a player to make it fashionable and to have that yellow band across the TV to say we had signed a player. If it is not going to work for us longer term or medium term then I didn’t see the point in that.
Whatever the reasons there has been no meaningful strengthening of the Celtic team and squad during the January transfer window.
News of injuries to Cameron Carter-Vickers and Reo Hatate over the last week puts greater reliance on a diminishing core of players which is also without Greg Taylor.
With an unforgiving run of fixtures coming up the quality of Celtic’s recruitment and Rodgers’ management will very soon be put to the test.
CLICK HERE for Anthony Joseph’s left-back update
CLICK HERE for Celtic’s welcome to Adam Idaht.
