BRENDAN RODGERS believes Celtic may be able to capitalise on the English transfer deadline closing at 5pm on Thursday – three weeks earlier than usual.
The Hoops boss has only brought in Odsonne Edouard and Scott Bain this summer, but is keen to make more quality additions before the end of the month.
Rodgers reckons the asking price for his signing targets will become more affordable after the Premier League transfer window shuts.
Asked if he thought that might work in the champions’ favour, the Irishman answered: “It may do. I think it’s a big hindrance for the Premier League, but it can maybe benefit us in a different way.
“I think they are hamstrung in terms of what they can do. Once their window closes the squads are settled and there’s maybe room for other players to be brought in.
“The Premier League had the right idea and concept – players have been sitting beside others in a changing room who wanted to go, but were expected to fight for points.
“At the same time it can make it more difficult. We’ll see – it might open up the market and the availability might be more for us.
“I think it’s something that will change next year. There has to be uniformity around Europe or go back to the way it was.The difficulty is that leagues are starting at different times.”
Rodgers, who has seen Stuart Armstrong, Erik Sviatchenko and loanees Patrick Roberts and Charly Musonda depart in the close season, admitted he will be reluctant to allow any member of his squad to leave either on loan or in a permanent deal in the coming weeks.
He added: “There are players of interest to other clubs, but at the moment I don’t have interest in losing players if the squad is down in numbers.
“All the players are working hard and fighting to improve themselves and there’s still a lot of time to go before the end of August.
“You need to have a competitive squad to bring the best out of it. I’m happy with the players we have, but we need to strengthen and that’s what we aim to do. It’s only natural.”
