PAUL67 took some stick on CQN on Wednesday evening for reporting accurately that the club would not be doing any further business and that manager Brendan Rodgers was ‘delighted’ with the how the club had emerged from the transfer window.
Many supporters failed to see how the Irishman could be ‘delighted’ having failed to secure the signing of the injured Everton holding midfielder James McCarthy.
Earlier in the week Paul reported that Celtic had no idea where the rumours concerning McCarthy were coming from and that he was not on the shopping list for late arrivals. 
Those who were were James Morrison, the creative midfielder at West Brom and Jason Denayer, the speedy central defender who knows all about Celtic having won the Young Player of the Year award at the club the season before last. Denayer opted for the relegation fight at Sunderland rather than the glamour of the Champions League at Celtic. Man City were keen that he goes to a Premier League club and perhaps didn’t fancy shoring up the Celtic defence ahead of the clubs meetings in Europe’s premier club event.
Today Brendan Rodgers spoke to Celtic TV and has cleared up a few of the points that have been debated by the supporters over the past week or so.
So was he after a defensive/holding midfielder?
“I wanted to bring in another creative player into our midfield to support the players we had here but I’ll never bring in anyone just for the sake of bringing in a player. It has to be the right type of player and profile otherwise you waste time, money and energy.”
Sounds more like James Morrison that the injured James McCarthy. Is Morrison better than Kris Commons? Who would you rather have in the team?
Next, is Brendan ‘delighted” with the outcome of the transfer window or is he secretly raging?
“We brought in five players that can make a difference to the squad and can help it and we tried everything we could to get the right level of quality player in, but the players we wanted in just weren’t available to get and you can’t get a player if a club doesn’t want to sell him or loan him.
“But I’m more than happy with what we’ve got for now, the work we’ve done in this first window as a club has been very good and now gives us a chance to really focus on our recruitment over the course of the coming months to maybe do something in January.
“But they players I have here – I’m delighted with their attitude and energy and they’re only going to improve now as we progress over the next few months.”
He seems rather pleased does he not? Looking forward to January too, so his squad is a work in progress.
Looking forward to a mouth watering month’s football for Celtic after the torture of the International break Brendan seems to know what he has to do.
“It’s a chance to recover and reflect and then September is a real exciting month for us and we can prepare for that.
“We’ve had a good start but we have to keep this momentum going, keep the supporters happy and help them in good spirits. We can only do that by winning games.”
So it was a creative midfielder rather than a holding one and he’s still to see Kris Commons fit. He does seem rather pleased, even delighted and we can expect more squad improvement in January. Oh and he plans to keep us all happy by winning games in September.
One game at a time Brendan, give us five or six in the next match please!
