Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has insisted that the club have a lot of work to do in this summer’s transfer window after losing key duo Stuart Armstrong and Patrick Roberts.
The Hoops have made two signings this summer in Odsonne Edouard and Scott Bain, both of whom had been on loan at the club last season. But they are yet to make any further signings in order to replace the departing Armstrong and Roberts, with the latter of the two potentially re-joining on loan.
Speaking about Celtic’s transfer dealings, Rodgers admitted that there are still areas of the team he hopes to improve.
“We’ve lost players so the bare minimum we need to do is replace that,” said Rodgers.
“We’ve lost Stuart Armstrong and we haven’t got a replacement yet. Patrick Roberts has gone out and we haven’t got a replacement yet. These are areas that we need to complete deals on and get that support into the team.
“Our job this year was pretty straight forward in terms of bringing players in, we only wanted players of quality.”
Rodgers also spoke out about top target John McGinn, whose move to Parkhead fell through earlier in the summer.
“He is a player that we clearly wanted to bring here,” Rodgers added. “I was really interested in bringing him in from a few months back.
“We haven’t been able to complete a deal and of course when you don’t complete a deal on a player it always opens the door for other teams – a club like Aston Villa, who have clearly interest in him, who have a big history of their own, a great club with excellent facilities and now financial backing.
“So we have to wait and see on that one.”
The boss also revealed that the club had rejected a bid from Fulham for Belgium defender Dedryck Boyata, saying that they have no intention of selling anymore players this summer.
“We don’t need to sell any players,” said Rodgers. “We’ve had two seasons now of Champions League [group stage] football and the club being on a high.
“We re-signed a player in Odsonne, which was a no-brainer, really. He was a top talent and we could see that last year so we’ve got one player in and, like I say, we had a few other positions where we wanted to increase the quality in our squad.
“And thus far we still have work to do on that. We’re hoping that we can do that business and do that work.
“When you’re a coach, you want to work with the players as quickly as you possibly can but until it’s done then we have to work with the players that’s here and the players here at the moment are doing very well for us.”
[Quotes via BBC Sport]