Brendan Rodgers refused to be deflected from the need for recruitment despite Celtic’s 4-0 win over Newcastle United.
Lifting the Adidas Cup was a nice sideline to an afternoon where virtually everything went right as 10,000 Newcastle fans were shown that there is talent to be found in The Farmers League.
On the back of a 2-0 win away to Sporting Lisbon it would be easy to assume that all is running smoothly at Celtic in the build up to the new season but Rodgers has been round the block often enough not to be fooled.
Goals from Arne Engels. Johnny Kenny, Yang Hyun-jun and Liam Scales were just reward for an impressive squad performance that saw 11 changes take place on the hour mark led by the emotional return of Kieran Tierney.
Shin Yamada was introduced to the fans before the match but Rodgers made it clear that he wants to see more goals added to his squad.
After losing last week to Estela da Amadora Rodgers reminded Michael Nicholson that he still hadn’t replaced Kyogo Furuhashi.
After scoring four against Newcastle he took the timeline back to last August when Matt O’Riley was sold to Brighton.
Selling O’Riley, Kyogo and Nicolas Kuhn within a 12 month period is a high risk ‘strategy’ with one image from last season resurfacing.
Matt O’Riley, Nicolas Kuhn and Kyogo celebrated the third goal yesterday. pic.twitter.com/8xhA0i1G3H
— JustAnOrdinaryBhoy (@ordinarybhoy) August 5, 2024
Post match comments from the manager
Closer to a new contract for Maeda?
Rodgers: Not that I’m aware of. I don’t think there have been any developments on that, but he’s a professional and his focus is very much on here
Where are you in terms of recruitment?
Rodgers: We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but the guys that are training and working with us are doing so well. You saw that today, and they’re all developing their fitness and participating in the games for us.
I would expect us by the end of the window to have brought in players in certain areas of the pitch that we need to go through a really long season. But it’s an exciting season for us.
I think it’s bringing goals to the squad. When you’ve just scored four goals, that always seems to be OK, but we lost an important player in January in Kyogo, who scored a lot of goals, and we’ve lost Nicolas Kuhn, a lot of goals again, and even Matt O’Riley last summer.
Even though we scored a lot of goals last season, we still want more, and our ambition is to have more, so I think all across the front areas, we have to be active in order to give us that depth.
Transfer timeline?
Rodgers: Any coach would love to have them in at the beginning, on the first day of pre-season, but we all know how the market works. There’s a little period, and then there’s another period to sign, and then it ramps up at the end.
Every coach will tell you that they want them in on the first day of the season, but as long as they’re here by the end of August, and obviously in some areas we would like them sooner. By the end of August, we’ll be able to see the squad that we have, and take it from there.
The end of August is of course after the Champions League Play Off with those ties taking place on August 19/20 and 26/27 followed by a trip to Ibrox.
To give new signings a fighting chance of having an impact on the Champions League Play Off matches they need to be signed and involved in the SPFL Premiership opener against St Mirren on August 3. Rodgers will have his ideal time-lines.
Following that there is a trip to Aberdeen a week later then a League Cup tie before the stakes are raised for the Champions League Play Off that will go a long way towards defining Celtic’s season.
After taking 12 points from eight group stage matches it would be a travesty if Celtic were to fail to qualify for the Champions League, a regular issue for the club over the last decade. No-one at the club should need reminded of Malmo, Marinor, Club, Ferencvaros or Midtjylland. Losing to AEK Athens as John McGinn was joining Aston Villa will cast a shadow that will never clear.
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