Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has claimed he does not want to stockpile squad players at Celtic, but the evidence points towards him already doing that.
After an initial burst of signings at the start of the January transfer window, fans are growing anxious that the club won’t be making the defensive improvements we will need in the second half of the season and beyond.
The right-back position has still not been addressed and we are facing something of a centre-back crisis in the summer when Dedryck Boyata and Filip Benkovic leave.
Rodgers though is calm about it all, claiming he will only bring in players if they are of the right quality.
As quoted by The Daily Mail, the Hoops boss said:
They have to really be able to make a genuine difference.
If you’re not spending maybe a lot of money on that then you always have to be careful that you just don’t stockpile players. I’m always conscious of that. You’ll always wait for quality.
We know we have areas that we want to improve on in the team but we can only do that with players that will actually make us better.
It’s a noble sentiment that on the face of it makes perfect sense. Unfortunately though a quick glance at the Celtic squad suggests there is already something of a stockpiling problem at the club.
There are currently 34 players listed as part of the first-team squad on the Celtic website, with a further three out on loan. That’s an enormous squad for a Scottish team to have and even more absurd when you consider some of the players currently on the books.
Dorus De Vries, Marvin Compper, Scott Allan, Yossouf Mulumbu and others are all currently nowhere near the Celtic first-team and most certainly do not fit into the philosophy of ‘quality over quantity’.
There have been many shocking signings at the club over the last few years and while it’s understandable that Rodgers does not want to add to the numbers, surely shipping some of these names out while buying the defenders we need is what fans should be expecting?