Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers is expecting to keep his trusted first-team squad intact on deadline day, ruling out a similar drama to the one that culminated in Moussa Dembele exiting the club last summer.
The Frenchman joined Lyon in a club record deal, but the whole situation left a bitter taste in supporters’ mouths after he forced the move with social media posts and strops in training.
Rodgers recognises that the sale wasn’t the best thing for the club in terms of forward planning and is hoping to keep his high profile players in Glasgow this time around.
As quoted by The Evening Times, the Hoops boss said:
You can try and plan for that but there are some things you just can’t forecast, like Moussa at the end of the last window. That was an unfortunate situation but he had to move on in the end.
The club benefited, which is great, but it’s not ideal in terms of squad preparation. We never thought we were going to lose him, we thought it would be in the summer.
It’s a window where we want to strengthen, we certainly don’t want to weaken the squad. All the players here, I expect to stay. If we can get one or two in, it would help to make us strong. There are some areas we are looking at.
That’s good news for supporters who may have worried we faced big money bids from cash rich clubs in the final hours of the windows.
Players like Olivier Ntcham and James Forrest have been linked with clubs in Portugal and England this month.
Losing either would have been a real blow to the first-team squad at a time we find ourselves in the middle of a title race with two consistent sides at the top of the Scottish Premiership.
Can the club now bring in one or two to really put a smile on fans’ faces?