BRENDAN RODGERS watched Celtic demolish Newcastle United 4-0 at Parkhead – and then insisted there is still “a lot of work to do” in the transfer market.
The Hoops boss welcomed Japanese striker Shin Yamada to the champions as the club’s sixth signing this summer before the Hoops romped to victory over their Premier League opponents with Arne Engels (pen), Johnny Kenny, Yang Hyun-jun and Liam Scales on target.
However, Rodgers is adamant the team still need more of a goal threat after selling Kyogo Furuhashi to Rennes for £10million at the turn of the year and Nicolas Kuhn to Como for £17.2million earlier this month.
The Irishman is on the trail of Royal Antwerp forward Michel-Ange Balikwisha and have also been linked with Romanian raider Louis Munteanu of Cluj.
Rodgers said: “We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but the guys who are training and working with us are doing so well – as you saw.
“I would expect us, by the end of the window, to have brought in players in certain areas of the pitch that we need to go through a really long season.
“It’s about bringing goals to the squad. When you’ve just scored four goals, that seems to be okay, but we lost an important player in January in Kyogo and we’ve lost Nicolas Kuhn, a lot of goals again. Even Matt O’Riley last summer.
“Even though we scored a lot of goals last season, we still want more – and our ambition is to have more, so I think, all across the front areas, we have to be active in order to give us that depth.”
Reflecting on the match, Rodgers, speaking to Celtic TV, continued: “It was always going to be a really good exercise against a top team and top players and I thought the boys were very, very good.
“Naturally, we’re after fitness and to develop that, but some of the football and the ideas we’ve been talking about and working on over the pre-season, we can see that and it was very impressive.
“What you have to do is be really good with the ball and be really technically good – and that’s what we were. Technically, we were so good in the game and then found our little patterns and that’s when we got into good spaces.”
Picking out the Yang strike for No.3 after a sweeping move and an inviting low cross from Daizen Maeda, Rodgers added: “In the modern game, you get lots of man-to-man play, so you have to deal with that, cope with that pressure, handle the ball and then play through it.
Images courtesy Celtic TV.
“It was really good play – brilliant by Johnny Kenny, how he received the ball and took it on to the side and then we got away with the two wingers and ended up scoring a very good goal.
“We saw last pre-season and obviously when you’re playing against a team from the English Premier League, you’re playing against one of the top teams, especially Newcastle.
“Considering the size of the club and how they’ve been building with Eddie Howe – who has done a brilliant job there – you know you’re going to face a real stern test of all your qualities.”
Celtic now move on to Como for Thursday’s meeting with Ajax.
BRENDAN BEAMS WITH HOOPS TO THE FOUR
