Yesterday Rodgers Articulated His Vision For A Transfer Strategy Every Celtic Fan Can Support.

Yesterday afternoon, Brendan Rodgers gave probably the best press conference of his time as Celtic boss, and everyone knows why.

The main reason was that he lashed out at Ibrox without mercy and delivered a stunning rebuke to those who claim there are two sides to the ongoing ticket dispute.

But Rodgers did more than just talk about the ticket standoff. He also discussed other topics, including the club’s transfer policy, and he sounded more bullish than he has in a long time when it came to that subject.

Rodgers spoke about the value in paying a premium for good players and referenced something Ange Postecoglou said two years ago, which I found fascinating both then and now. He suggested that the club should pursue a policy of moving up the ladder—that £6 million signings can yield a better return in terms of profit than a £1 million signing.

He’s talking about Matt O’Riley and how Matt is somewhat of a one-off in that regard. Of course, O’Riley cost £1 million, and we could get 20 times that back. But Rodgers knows that in order to get the really big bucks, you have to go for a player who can develop into that kind of star. If you’re constantly aiming for £1 million players, you’re engaging in a bit of a hit-and-miss strategy.

There are no guarantees with higher-cost players, but you’re more or less securing someone who already has the attributes to go on and become a genuine top-level professional.

He didn’t give examples, although he has said that he believes the money we paid for Adam Idahwill prove more than justified in a later fee. But examples like Jota, Édouard, and Virgil van Dijk should come readily to mind—players for whom we paid a good transfer fee initially, knowing we were getting quality.

This is something Postecoglou also talked about—how you buy the £2 million player, sell them for £10 million, and use that £10 million to buy the £6 million player, whom you then sell for £20 million. You use the cash from that to buy the £10 million player and move up the ladder again.

The progression is not just in the value you get back but also in the initial signing and the quality you bring to the team.

Has Rodgers won this battle with the board? Has he convinced them that this is a viable strategy? We’re going to find out in what’s left of this transfer window, and there is an obvious candidate on whom we can test the theory.

The Belgian midfielder Arne Engels, with whom we were linked this week, has allegedly told his friends he wants to sign for Celtic.

If that’s true, then we have more than just a passing interest in this guy, and real contact has been made. His club wants £10 million—a huge sum of money. But he is that next-level footballer and in the right age bracket, where we’re getting him young, but he’s only going to improve.

A signing in that bracket will, of course, most probably be contingent on the sale of Matt O’Riley, and we all know this is the case. We’re not spending that kind of money unless Matt O’Riley goes. And worse, that would be a very difficult deal to pull off in such a short space of time. The fact that Rodgers is talking like this though suggests that perhaps this isn’t the mad transfer fantasy some of us believed when we initially read the reports.

Rodgers has spoken very openly and set out his plans, and explained how they will work. This is the first time I think we can actually feel some sense of optimism that this isn’t just talk. Everyone inside Celtic Park must know this window has been a disaster, steered by rank incompetence, and all it has accomplished so far is to create disharmony among the fans who don’t believe the manager has been properly supported.

Here we are in mid-August, and the team is still not stronger than it was when last season ended. That is an atrocious situation for us to be in. And Rodgers doesn’t believe that’s acceptable; he has vowed once again that he will get the players he needs to make this team stronger before the window shuts, which is only two weeks away.

I wrote yesterday about how we need to reach a decision on what to do with Matt O’Reilly, and we need to reach that decision very, very soon. With two weeks left, there is not a moment to lose in deciding on a policy and implementing it.

Rodgers has condemned last summer’s insanity in a way that readers of this blog will recognise. He says that instead of spending £18 million on ten players, we could have spent it on three and got the right quality into the team and in addition we could have had the bankable assets to sell on for big, big money at a later date. The team would have been stronger for it, and the bank balance would have been stronger somewhere down the line.

This is nothing but good sense and sound strategy.

And there’s no better person out there to oversee such a policy and take on a task like that than this manager. If we do manage to find a way to support him fully in what’s left of this window, I think we can keep him here for a long time.

If he stays here for a long time, forget about dominance in Scotland—that will be just a side effect. This guy can take us places in European football that we haven’t been in years.

My faith in the manager is total. My trust in the manager is 100%.

The people above him at the club must back this vision because this is the vision we’ve all been crying out for. And he articulated it yesterday as well as he did the truth on the ticket standoff with Ibrox. He put it in simple, clear terms, and that’s the closest to a coherent transfer plan I’ve heard from this club in a long time.

Now, they simply have to implement it.