Celtic manager admits he wanted another No 9 and says everyone will learn from window
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers says the club will just have to “deal with” not bringing in a replacement for talismanic striker Kyogo Furuhashi after the current Scottish champions failed to land a new hitman on transfer deadline day.
Furuhashi, who scored 85 goals in his time at Celtic, was sold to Rennes last week for a fee of £10 million, leaving Rodgers with just one recognised senior No 9 in his squad in the shape of Adam Idah. Rodgers stressed at the weekend that he wanted further reinforcement up top but despite being heavily linked with Brondby starlet Mathias Kvistgaarden and Sevilla striker Kelechi Iheanacho, the window closed with no addition in that area.
Rodgers admitted that Celtic were working right up until the 11pm deadline on Monday for a new striker but that the cards did not fall quite right for the club. Celtic did bring in left-back Jeffrey Schlupp on loan from Crystal Palace in addition to the earlier arrival in the window of Jota, but the failure to sign a replacement for Furuhashi left a bitter taste in many supporters’ mouths.
Asked to discuss the transfer window and not signing another striker ahead of Wednesday’s Premiership match against Dundee, Rodgers said he would not let any frustrations “kill his joy” and explained: “We’ve done some really good business in the window. A few things didn’t quite drop for us that we would have liked, but however it ends, you know the squad you have and fundamentally, we’re here to develop the players now for the rest of the season that are here.
I think it’s something [signing a new striker] that I said clearly we wanted to do, we wanted to have that support at the top end of the field. We didn’t manage to do that.
“There’s so many different facets to the transfer and obviously the identification of a player, then convincing the player to come, which in the main is never a problem for here. But no, we just weren’t quite able to get a deal done on that front. Like I say, it’s something that we as a club will go away, we’ll review the whole process and then look to be better again in the summer.”
Asked to elaborate on the transfer dealings so close to the window, Rodgers continued: “I just think they’re never as plain and simple as what people will sometimes think. I think we all understood everyone, we all want the same at Celtic. We all know that we were losing a top-class striker [Furuhashi] and we wanted to bring in another one. Because it’s not just bringing in, it’s being able to then allow other players to go out to continue their development. So it’s two-fold really.
But if it doesn’t happen, then we have to deal with that and we have to understand going forward the way and how we can be better in that process and then, like I say, develop the players that are currently here. I think we brought in some really good players. Could we have done better? Yes, we could. However, as I said, we work with the players that are here now. That is the focus. I don’t really want to be looking back.
We’ve done some good business in the January window. Like I said, I’m not going to become frustrated now and kill my joy of working here every day at the club by thinking what could have been. We can’t affect that now. We can review it and move on.”
Rodgers revealed that 21-year-old Irish striker Johnny Kenny will be given more seniority in the squad and that he will look to develop him further. Kenny spent the first half of the season on loan at Shamrock Rovers and it is understood that the plan was to loan him out to St Mirren for the rest of the campaign if a new striker came in. He only made his debut for the club last month.
“Johnny Kenny will be here and we can see even in the three weeks or so he’s been training with us and the coaches who’ve been here before, they see the real difference in him from his experience going back, playing with Shamrock, playing with Europe,” said Rodgers. “Brilliant finisher, physically in a good place, so I’m now putting my time into him and working with him and seeing how he develops now because he’s a natural finisher in the box, there’s absolutely no doubt about that.”
Rodgers, however, refuted the suggestion that selling Kyogo Furuhashi without having a replacement lined up was the wrong thing to do. The Japanese had made it clear to the Celtic hierarchy that he wanted a new challenge months ago and the club decided to cash in on Rennes’ offer last month.
“Some people will say that, but you don’t have the depth of knowledge that I have on the player and working with him and going back to the summer,” continued Rodgers. “It’s a fair enough thing to say. You can very easily say, you should really have someone in the door before you let him go. But there was a situation with that player which meant that wasn’t the case. And that was something that had been running for a number of months, not just for the few days before he left. So, like I said, I repeat, if a player does not want to be here, then we do the best deal and move on.
Rodgers was asked if he understood the fan frustration at not signing a replacement for Furuhashi. “Yeah, 100 per cent,” he replied. “Listen, I said it myself. We want another striker, so we’re not hiding behind anything. And absolutely, the supporters will look and see our top striker going out, legendary striker. And we haven’t replaced it. So I understand that. Understand that. But all I can do is affect what we have now and look to teach and work, and work very, very hard and finish off what has been, until now, a great season for us.”
Rodgers says the challenge now is for everyone at Celtic to move on and make sure that they are ready for when the summer transfer window opens in June. “Listen, I don’t want to pin blame on anyone here,” he said. “I think as a collective, it wasn’t ideal how it ended for us. So what we have to do, as a club, now go away and look at that. And like we’ll do every window, that’s what you have to do. I think you look around, of course there wasn’t a great deal happening, but certainly all I was concerned about was for Celtic and what I needed to happen here. So we’ll look into that and move forward.
