Brendan Rodgers sent out another plea to Michael Nicholson to bring in the players needed to give Celtic a fighting chance in the Champions League.
Ignoring the seven project signings brought in by Mark Lawwell last summer the hoops looked highly impressive as they opened their defence of the SPFL Premiership title.
The big question is whether that side is improved by signing players of a similar standard or weakened by selling Matt O’Riley and/or Reo Hatate who have both signed long term contracts in the last 12 months.
Ten weeks after winning the Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Celtic are weaker. A like for like replacement of Joe Hart has been achieved, Paulo Bernardo has returned from Benfica, signing a give year deal.
Unfortunately Adam Idah remains at Norwich, with Oh Hyeon-gyu sold to Genk Rodgers is left with one striker in Kyogo Furuhashi with a similar situation at left-back where Greg Taylor is in the final year of his contract.
Clearly a lot of work is required to be completed before the transfer window closes but there is nothing to suggest that Nicholson is about to secure the additions that Rodgers is looking for.
🗣️ “I see these reports that I’m sending messages or codes [to the board]. I’m relaying my feelings, but my feelings are with them first.”
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers hopes for more players in over the next month.#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/GgsOOMtUru
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) August 4, 2024
Later in that interview Rodgers was asked about retaining O’Riley for the Champions League, the Celtic boss made it clear that he wants to retain the former MK Dons midfielder and bring in more players of that standard:
I would love for one, Matt to be here but also two, to have more tools to give it a real go at the Champions League.
It’s one of our big targets this season We want to see if we can get into those play-off phases and for that obviously with so many games, so many challenges in this season for us, we want to improve the squad.
So, for Matt and other players, absolutely that’s our challenge over these next three and a half weeks to hopefully get tooled up to have the best opportunity we can.
Rodgers has sent out a number of public requests to have the squad strengthened, back in November after losing to Lazio in the Champions League he revealed that his initial squad assessment was that four positions needed strengthened.
In January Nicolas Kuhn was the only permanent signing with the German winger a clear upgrade on Marco Tilio, Yang Hyun-jun and Luis Palma who were all identified and signed by Lawwell Junior.
After his experiences last summer it seems that Rodgers has put his foot down with an effective block on project signings despite a few links to wonder kids around the globe.
The big question is whether the recruitment bar has been raised to spend more than £3m on a player with the salary cap of £15,000 a week disposed of.
Since Rodgers returned as manager he has lost Jota, Carl Starfelt, Aaron Mooy and Liel Abada from the list of recognised first team starters.
