Brendan Rodgers admits Celtic need to be ‘braver’ going forward in the transfer market… with the club welcoming just two new arrivals in January

Brendan Rodgers believes Celtic must be ‘braver’ in their future dealings in the transfer market.

The manager signed striker Adam Idah on loan from Norwich on deadline day, with £3million Rapid Vienna winger Nicolas Kuhn recruited earlier.

Given his repeated pleas for more quality to be brought in following an underwhelming summer, the volume of incoming transfers fell significantly short of expectations.

Insisting every effort was made by those working in the background, the Parkhead boss says several deals fell through because of the intransigence of selling clubs. But he claims fans will only feel less short-changed in future if the board are prepared to reconsider what they’re prepared to spend on players with a proven pedigree.

Sympathising with those supporters who feel the club already have the financial clout to pay more on transfer fees, Rodgers says he will now work to convince his paymasters to take a bolder approach.

‘I would go with supporters thinking we could maybe be a little bit braver in terms of bringing in another level of player,’ he said. ‘But that’s up to me to try and fix that over the course of my time here.

‘You look at the strategy here and you have to be careful because in some ways it has worked. You bring in players for a minimal fee and then they go out and make the club a lot of money.

‘What I want to hopefully balance in my time here is that we can still do that, because it is an important part of the modern game. But we also want to be brave enough to hang our hat on a ready-made player.

‘So, I totally understand the support, but, likewise, that player has to be available.’

Although clearly frustrated that he was only able to make two signings, the manager was reluctant to apportion blame. ‘The club worked very, very hard in order to help and improve the squad,’ he insisted. ‘So, there can be no fingers pointed in that direction.

‘You can’t just purely label it on the recruitment team. The recruitment team clearly had a job to do, like we all have a job to do. But this is a collective responsibility and what I would say is that I understand where we were at in the summer. I understand the structure even more now having been here and where we’re at.

‘It’s just about the level of player. We could have brought in players to fill out the squad, but that’s not what we need. This team needs a level of player that’s going to allow the team to progress.

The SPL champions brought Norwich forward Adam Idah in on loan on deadline day

German winger Nicolas Kuhn was the club’s only permanent signing of the winter window 

‘If that’s not available or we couldn’t quite get the player to the club, then unfortunately that’s the way it is.’

Elaborating on the reasons why the expected stream of recruits didn’t materialise, he added: ‘We looked at a number of players that didn’t just quite fit or wouldn’t have improved what we had in certain positions.

‘And then there were others where it was the other club. There was a willingness here to bring players in, but you need that to work both ways.

‘There were a few players who really wanted to come but the club wouldn’t allow them to come.’