‘Kills off any chance of Miovski’ ‘confirms Oh will be leaving’ ‘big time downgrade’ Alarm bells over striker comment from Rodgers

While playing down the loss of Rocco Vata, Brendan Rodgers gave away some surprising transfer details.

The teenager joined Watford earlier in the week after six brief substitute appearances for Celtic, two of them under Rodgers, against Buckie Thistle in the Scottish Cup and a few minutes a week later away to Aberdeen.

Vata started out playing on the right wing but was used mainly as a striker last season, he replaced Kyogo Furuhashi against Buckie then came on for Luis Palma in the 87th minute of the 1-1 draw at Pittodrie in what turned out to be his last Celtic appearance.

Three seasons at Celtic playing in the Lowland League has been two too many for Vata’s development but it seems that Rodgers had the 19-year-old earmarked to be his third choice striker for the 24/25 season.

Speaking to the Daily Record, Rodgers said:

Rocco was offered it and he was going to be one of the three strikers at Celtic and he decided that that wasn’t going to be for him. So he then leaves. That is absolutely fine and we wish him all the very best.

With attempts on going to sign Adam Idah from Norwich it seems that Rodgers’ plan was to have Kyogo, Idah and Vata as his three strikers in a system that almost always uses just one striker alongside two wingers.

Kyogo’s quality is beyond debate but there is a dilemma over back up options with Idah fulfilling the role perfectly following his loan move from Norwich.

Fortunately Kyogo and Idah both avoided injury during the second half of the season but that isn’t guaranteed with a Plan C required.

Odsonne Edouard stepped into that role perfectly during the 2017/18 season when Rodgers had Odsonne Edouard and Leigh Griffiths ahead of the French u-21 internationalist.

After being used sparingly over six months French Eddy rose brilliantly to the challenge in the spring time with vital goals to help deliver a second domestic treble.

A £9m deal was struck in the close season, early in the 2018/19 season Dembele was on the move with Edouard quickly becoming first choice with Griffiths beset by problems.

In an ideal world many Celtic fans would like to see Kyogo joined by Idah and Bojan Miovski brought in from Aberdeen.

With a testing three match schedule in the USA just over a week away Rodgers has only Kyogo and Oh Hyeon-gyu to work with, the Korean striker is wanted by Genk and played his last match in mid-February.

Three weeks away from the start of the SPFL season it seems that urgent work is required on the Celtic forward line, if Norwich aren’t prepared to discuss a permanent move for Idah it really is time to crack on with alternatives.