Brendan Rodgers recently told a meeting of Celtic fan media representatives that his priority in the January transfer window is to sign another winger.
That claim has been backed up today by Stephen McGowan in the Daily Mail discussing last week’s meeting in Dublin between Dermot Desmond and the Celtic manager.
Almost all season Nicolas Kuhn and Daizen Maeda have been in the Starting XI but beyond James Forrest there is effectively no back-up for either player.
Mark Lawwell signed up Luis Palma, Marco Tilio and Yang Hyun-jun but it is clear that they have as much of Celtic future as Marian Shved, the millionth winger signed in the January 2019 transfer window before Rodgers left for Leicester.
After some restructuring work in the summer Rodgers has alternatives in almost all positions on the park with five midfielders for three places, two strikers for one position and four central defenders for two spots.
With Forrest and Kuhn injured for the match at Dundee United on Sunday Palma and Yang were both given opportunities to impress, it seems unlikely that there will be many more sightings for the duo signed by Mark Lawwell.
Tino from The Celtic Exchange attended the meeting with Rodgers and gave a very detailed account of what the hoops manager is looking for next month.
4 minutes 30 seconds Tino:
You mentioned the need for a winger and I’ve got to agree with you. We were at an event at Celtic Park, just a few weeks ago, it was Brendan Rodgers speaking to a fairly small crowd, we were asked not to take pictures and cameras and all that kind of stuff, just to scout the event.
And, he was very frank, very open, very interesting as he always is. But when asked, there was a Q and A thing at the end of it he said that a winger was the priority. He was quite open, quite happy to share that information.
He mentioned a couple of reasons for that but one, he said that would genuinely leave him with Maeda as his third choice striker. So we know that they have Kyogo, Idah and then nothing. Maybe Jonny Kenny, maybe (Daniel) Cummings but that is a different topic for a different day.
He said having a third choice striker, he said pitching that to someone is a hard sell , ‘come on in, be not the first choice, not the second choice but come in and be the back up to the back up’ So that is tricky.
What he has done is, and he spoke about this is to try and get players that can play in a couple of different positions. Maybe Engels is a good example, Engels can play further forward in midfield or he can sit and protect. Maybe, someone like Maeda, he can play with or centre forward, and that’s how he gets round these situations.
Right now there is no doubt that Maeda and Kuhn are out starting wingers, James Forrest has performed admirably in recent times and credit to him but generally speaking the drop off from one of our two starting wingers, either isn’t playing or isn’t performing and Maeda is in the later category today. It is quite a notable drop off and for that reason I would say a winger is the priority.
Last week McGowan highlighted Celtic’s continuing interest in signing Michel-Ange Balikwisha from Royal Antwerp.
Rodgers is unlikely to be providing any media conferences ahead of Thursday’s match at home to Motherwell other than a brief update Exclusive to Celtic TV.
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