Brendan Rodgers has sent out a contentment warning over transfer business as he prepares for the January window to open.
After two dubious transfer windows last season it seems that Celtic got back on course when the summer window closed with a number of key issues addressed.
The loan deals on Paulo Bernardo and Adam Idah were converted to permanent moves backed up by the arrivals of Arne Engels, Auston Trusty, Alex Valle and Auston Trusty.
Concerns about replacing Joe Hart were eliminated by the signings of Kasper Schmeichel and Viljami Sinisalo, on the surface it seemed perfect business but underneath there were issues.
Engels, McCowan and Trusty were signed on Deadline Day, Valle a few days earlier, no outfield signings were in the squad that prepared for the new season in the USA.
Rodgers saw his plans finally come together but due to international breaks he has been unable to get more than a few weeks together on the training ground.
The Irishman knows how quickly things can change in football, Alex Ferguson described complacency as a virus with Rodgers subscribing to that view as he prepared for Wednesday’s match away to Aberdeen.
You always have to look to improve at every moment you can. I never say complacency, but ‘contentment’ is something that you don’t want to have. You don’t want to be content, you don’t want to be happy.
You always have to be improving and developing and that’s something that we as a club want to be able to do.
I think we’ve been able to, in the last couple of winters, really energise the squad and bring it to a level that allows us to work at how we’re working at the moment but we always have to look beyond that and look to the future.
There’s still areas that I would like to improve in the squad. There’s absolutely no question about that. We can’t do everything in the summer one, although we’ve done a lot of great work there but there’s definitely one or two areas just to give that freshness to the squad as well. And give that quality.
So it’s important that we keep building. Like I said, it’s contentment. All the players will learn, develop, they’ll get better but you need to always provide competition and that’s something I’ll always look at.
While the January transfer window is often referred to as being ‘notoriously difficult’ Ange Postecoglou blew that theory apart in 2022. Rodgers will look to repeat that success, the benchmark of January windows.
On December 31 Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Yosuke Ideguchi were signed up and good to go, when Riley McGree opted to join Middlesbrough attention switched to Matt O’Riley from MK Dons with three of those four signings playing major roles in winning the SPFL and securing Champions League football.
Unless Celtic win the Champions League they will be involved in qualifiers for next season’s competition, having a squad in place to get through those fixtures will be vital which requires players to be signed up long before Deadline Day.
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