Chris Sutton has joined the puzzled, frustrated and concerned Celtic supporters examining the club’s summer transfer activities. And the impact it will have on Brendan Rodgers.
On its own transfer business is worth investigating but with the club manager now into the final year of his contract it carries extra significance.
In January the manager was sold short by the sale of Kyogo Furuhashi to Rennes, either Michael Nicholson decided to deliberately weaken the squad or he was incapable of sourcing a replacement despite months of notice from the Japanese striker. Apparently.
Either scenario is concerning.
Six months down the line Rodgers is no closer to getting a replacement for Kyogo. He got more than a tune out of Daizen Maeda through the spring, Johnny Kenny has emerged as a strong prospect while Rodgers works on the confidence of Adam Idah against snipers from all angles.
And the Celtic board thinks that Shin Yamada is the solution! A 25-year-old striker with two goals from 1,085 minutes in this season’s J-League.
It all points towards a spectacular stand off. Rodgers not having trust in the players he is handed and the board not trusting their manager to develop talent in line with the fabled Player Trading Model that failed spectacularly in 2023.
Taking a step back to look at the win over Sporting Lisbon, in the Daily Record Sutton explained:
But seeing off Sporting Lisbon the other night might have actually been the worst possible result for Brendan Rodgers.
His side performed pretty well but it didn’t tell us anything we didn’t really know.
The performance of Benjamin Nygren was perhaps the one revelation but we know Callum McGregor is a player, we are well aware of what Reo Hatate can do and how dangerous Daizan Maeda can be, or that Adam Idah needs to be a bit sharper in front of goal at times.
But results like that one shouldn’t kid anyone on. Celtic are still way short of where they need to be in terms of the squad.
And we can’t keep saying the same thing every week with the new season and the Champions League qualifier inching ever closer.
Drilling into the issues around the Yamada deal he added:
Rodgers needs reinforcements and his comments about incoming Shin Yamada won’t exactly put fans at ease, when it’s clear they are starting to get a bit frustrated at the last of serious movement in the transfer market.
The manager described the Japanese striker as a club signing and one he’ll assess when he gets in to see if he’s going to be one to develop for the future or one for the here and now.
I find all that stuff a bit bizarre. You don’t get this stuff elsewhere about club signings as opposed to manager signings.
Rodgers is clearly being a bit cute. He will have had the final say on the deal but it looks like he’s agreed to take a look at a low risk cheap arrival while also creating a bit of distance if he doesn’t quite work out.
It’s a strange scenario. You can’t be over-critical of a transfer policy that has made the club fortunes over the last decade and more.
But it doesn’t seem like Celtic don’t half make things hard for themselves when it comes to transfers.
During his first spell season in charge of Celtic, hunting down an invincible treble Rodgers described the power of a united club:
The strength of Celtic is being together and what we have proven this year is the fusion between the players, the management and the supporters- when that is together Celtic is a powerful force.
We will have bumps along the way but if that holy trinity can stay together then we can achieve and give them the happiness. That is all we can do.
Less than two years later with Vakoun Bayo, Marian Shved, Andrew Gutman, Manny Perez and Oli Burke at Celtic Rodgers was managing Leicester City.
There is little sign of unity at Celtic these days with fans trying to read into every decision at the club with the board and CEO taking a vow of silence on everything. Even the future of a highly successful manager.
Michael Nicholson won’t even appear on in-house media to congratulate the manager and players on winning the SPFL Premiership title.
Other than cracking a few gags at the AGM nothing is heard of from Nicholson, in his only media interview as Celtic CEO, in June 2023 when Rodgers returned as manager Nicholson claimed that the ambitions of the club was to be world class in everything they do.
It seems that he has still to get round to addressing the Academy, communications or the in-stadium fan experience, especially for females in the South Stand. And the embarrassing UEFA co-efficient that trails Bodo Glimt, Red Star Belgrade, Ferencvaros and Copenhagen.
Rodgers didn’t appear for media duties to promote today’s friendly with Newcastle but the contract issue is to the fore, tied in with transfer activity.
Claims that everyone is working hard behind the scenes on transfers no longer washes, the stakes are too high.
Rodgers will be in front of the media at least twice a week between now and the end of August, if the club won’t invest in the transfer market or trust the judgement of the manager they risk having find a new one sooner than they’d like.
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