Rodgers: Celtic should act like Liverpool in the transfer market

Rodgers: Celtic should act like Liverpool in the transfer market

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers has blamed Celtic’s failure to qualify for the Champions League on their lack of signings, sighting that the Hoops should have added to their squad in a similar fashion to his former club Liverpool.

Rodgers’ side failed to reach the Champions League group stages as they lost 2-1 away to AEK Athens on Tuesday – losing the game 3-2 on aggregate.

It serves as the first time that Celtic have failed to qualify for the competition under the management of Rodgers.

The Hoops have signed just three new players this summer, breaking their transfer record to land Odsonne Edouard from Paris Saint-Germain and bringing in Honduran defender Emilio Izaguirre and Scottish goalkeeper Scott Bain on free transfers. But there have been various reports that claim Rodgers is unhappy at the club for not signing several of his targets.

And after the defeat in Greece, Rodgers admitted he is frustrated at the lack of action in the transfer market – saying that they should have invested in a similar way to his old club.

“It’s pretty obvious, you have to keep progressing and keep getting stronger,” Rodgers told BBC Scotland.

“You only need to look at Liverpool, who got to the Champions League final and invested the money they had to be stronger.

“It’s not rocket science. You have to always guard against becoming complacent and the way you do that is by adding to the squad. There are players we’ve kept, but obviously getting other players in.

“But that’s for another day, there’s a disappointment tonight from the players that were here that we let that slip through our hands.

“We’ve been unfortunate in missing some of our key players.

“We wanted the Champions League but the Europa League is still a very good competition.

“Celtic will always attract very good players and that is hopefully something we can still do before the window closes.”