The league season is still the best part of three weeks away from starting. There’s no need to panic. But for a while there earlier in the month, Brendan Rodgers gave the impression he was starting to go a little bit Maryan Shved.
Remember him? Ukrainian bloke brought in from Karpaty Lviv back in January 2019 and seen about as often as the snow leopard.
Asked about Shved’s impending £1.5million signing at the time, Rodgers stated ‘we’ve got about a million wingers and don’t need another one’ and expressed the view he was likely to be punted out on loan before he’d even set foot through the door.
It was taken as the clearest of indicators that all was not well with Rodgers and the Parkhead board over the direction of travel on transfers and, sure enough, he called time on his first spell as Celtic manager a month later when Leicester City appeared on the horizon.
Things are different now than they were then, of course. Rodgers, whose current contract has a year to run, is committed to staying around for at least this term. He’s had to work hard to win back the affections of the Parkhead fans and it’s been all love and kisses of late.
However, his words on recent signings Callum Osmand and Hayato Inamura have certainly carried echoes of more tumultuous times.
Brendan Rodgers has a year left to run on his contract as Celtic manager
Hayato Inamura has arrived at Celtic but there have been no big money moves
Osmand, brought in from Fulham, doesn’t look like being near the first-team any time soon. ‘I think the plan is to take him in, have a look, see where he’s at and then decide what his development needs to look like,’ said Rodgers, giving the impression he’s not exactly up to full speed on where the 19-year-old is.
On Inamura, a £250,000 arrival from Albirex Niigata, the messages have been even more confusing.
One minute, the Japanese defender was not ready to go into the side, was termed ‘part of the investment of the club’ – whatever that means – and could maybe even be farmed out on loan.
The next, after playing 45 minutes of a friendly against Cork City, Rodgers is out saying he’s changed his mind, claiming the 23-year-old ‘surprised him’.
Weren’t we supposed to be past the stage where Rodgers was working with players that didn’t – and don’t – feel like his signings?
Didn’t the arrivals of the likes of Nicolas Kuhn, Adam Idah and Arne Engels signal that he was back being the daddy, calling the shots instead of remaining the glazed-eyed guy who first returned to the club, mumbling about being happy to coach any old odd and sod handed a contract?
The whole situation is just peculiar. But it’s been a peculiar old window in general so far at Celtic.
Rodgers was crystal clear about what was required when talking about his ambitions in the market towards the end of last season. He warned against complacency, demanded progress, talked about improving the squad and bringing freshness because ‘it’s either that or the manager goes.’
Rodgers wanted to strengthen his squad but has lost Nicolas Kuhn to Como
Celtic paid Nordsjaelland £2million for Swedish winger Benjamin Nygren
He wanted ‘two or three high quality additions’ providing all his key players stayed. Well, Kuhn has gone along with Greg Taylor and there are teams interested in Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda among others.
To say the business done so far is underwhelming feels like an understatement. When Rodgers spoke of his summer requirements, the deal to bring Kieran Tierney back on a free transfer – a move that breaks with the strategy of investing in talents with clear resale value – had already been agreed.
Benjamin Nygren has played four times for Sweden and the £2m spent to recruit him from Nordsjaelland could prove a bargain.
Other than that, it’s Osmand, Inamura and Ross Doohan, who, despite having earned a first Scotland cap in unusual circumstances in Liechtenstein, is not going to displace established goalkeepers Kasper Schmeichel and Viljami Sinisalo in the pecking order.
Japanese striker Shin Yamada is widely expected to be next in the door in a £1.5m move from Kawasaki Frontale and there are other targets such as Michel-Ange Balikwisha of Royal Antwerp, who will cost considerably more should negotiations take a step forward.
Are these guys really the ‘high quality’ Rodgers talked of, though? It doesn’t feel like it and it won’t be long until the patience of the support – never mind the manager – begins to wear thin should a couple of blockbusters fail to get signed and sealed.
The January window saw Kyogo Furuhashi sold to Rennes for £10m without a direct replacement being brought in. Rodgers admitted it was ‘not ideal’ and conceded the squad was left lighter. ‘We could have done better,’ he said.
Although it is still relatively early days, they need to do better in this one too. Rodgers made it painfully evident he wanted a striker to replace Furuhashi and he didn’t get one. So far, this tranche of top-standard arrivals he desires this summer remains conspicuous by its absence.
Japanese striker Kyogo was sold to Rennes for £10m but not replaced
Big money, by Scottish standards, has been spent under his reign. Engels, Idah, Auston Trusty and Jota cost an estimated £33m in transfer fees alone and it’s hard to argue that any of them have lived up to expectations.
There is also uncertainty over Rodgers’ future. He has spoken about how he’ll have served almost six years as manager over two spells by the end of the upcoming campaign and talked of the pressures of the position.
In truth, next summer, with another title and possibly more having been won against a Rangers side going through a serious rebuild, is shaping up to be a good time for him to leave with his legacy repaired and intact.
However, it is clear Celtic do still have to bring in serious reinforcements if Rodgers is to realise his immediate ambition of building on last term’s journey to the play-off round of the Champions League and that excellent display in Munich when being edged out by Bayern.
They are rolling in money. They have just agreed a £17m deal with Como for Kuhn. They’ve received a sell-on fee from Jeremie Frimpong’s transfer from Bayer Leverkusen to Liverpool. There will be another one coming when Matt O’Riley leaves Brighton. There are no excuses.
The lack of progress in delivering what Rodgers has demanded, coupled with the messiness of January, does make you wonder, though, whether he is really driving the bus at Celtic any longer.
There’s still time for the picture to change. Still time for the squad to look like it isn’t weaker than it was a year ago.
However, when it looks for all the world like players are arriving that Rodgers isn’t terribly clued-up on, it rings the faintest of alarm bells.
Jeremie Frimpong’s move from Bayer Leverkusen to Liverpool earned Celtic a sell-on fee
When that happened with poor old Maryan, Terminado-time wasn’t too far down the road – and the odds on the same happening again at the end of Rodgers’ deal will shorten considerably should he suffer another window of not getting what he has very, very publicly said he wants.
Martin is right to be looking at a replacement for Butland
For a bloke who arrived with a reputation for prioritising attack over defence, Rangers manager Russell Martin has made his fair share of signings geared towards bolting the door at the back.
Securing a goalkeeper – and, in the process, almost certainly spelling the end for Jack Butland at Ibrox – has to be his one of his next priorities, though.
Butland had a poor season last term hard on the heels of selling the jerseys in the 2024 Scottish Cup final against Celtic. A number of high profile errors eventually led to him losing his place in the side to Liam Kelly and missing out on both legs of the Europa League quarter-final against Athletic Bilbao.
The support, as well as interim manager Barry Ferguson, lost faith in him. Even if the 32-year-old was to regain his place for the beginning of the new campaign, all it would take is one bad error for all that doubt and frustration to come flooding back into Ibrox at top volume.
And that’s not something the new manager can afford as he bids to get off on the right footing and buy himself some time with an early run of wins.
Laurie Walker, Martin’s former keeper at MK Dons, also stated in a recent interview that his old boss wants his No 1 to effectively play as another centre-half.
Rangers may look for an upgrade on goalkeeper Jack Butland after a poor season
Russell Martin likes his goalkeeper to be good with the ball at his feet
It seems evident, under the style to be implemented, that the keeper will have to be good at playing the ball with his feet and dealing with pressurised situations in possession.
Whether Butland will be well enough suited to those responsibilities is also open to question.
Reports linking Rangers with a loan move for Brighton’s Carl Rushworth in midweek suggested Martin is interested in finding new options in goal and that should certainly get Butland thinking about his options too. It is unthinkable that he would settle for being a back-up at this stage in his career.
As time has gone on, turning down that £5million offered by Nottingham Forest 18 months ago, when Butland was on top of his game in a terrific debut campaign, has looked more and more like a missed opportunity for Rangers.
However, he still has two years to run on his existing deal and could surely still bring in a seven-figure fee.
He could do with making a fresh start and attempting to get back to the form that had him tipped for an England recall just over a year ago in an environment where he will not be under the microscope the way he now is here.
Then, Rangers can take the money brought in, plus the wage that would be freed-up, and set about addressing the other big thing on the to-do list – finding a proper striker if and when Hamza Igamane is sold.
Danilo might have scored in a 1-1 bounce game with Barnsley at St George’s Park on Saturday while Cyriel Dessers’ proposed move to AEK Athens has gone cold for the moment, but neither of those guys will do.
