Rodgers makes it clear that he has no interest in the Norwegian winger.

Earlier today, I posted a piece suggesting that the story linking us to the Norwegian winger seemed far-fetched. Too many moving parts had to align for it to happen, and it would have complicated our already pressing needs: bringing in a striker and securing the left-back we so desperately require.

This window remains in flux. I’ll write a longer piece about it tomorrow morning, but tonight we can put one rumour firmly to bed.

Brendan Rodgers, speaking at his press conference earlier, not only confirmed that Kieran Tierney will join in the summer if we can’t get him earlier—and by God, we need him earlier—but he also denied any knowledge of a £7 million move for the Norwegian winger. To me, that kills the story dead.

If this club is spending £7 million without the manager signing off on it, I want to know who’s making that decision and on what basis. Rodgers is also fully entitled to know who is playing games with the transfer cash he clearly thought was earmarked for strengthening the areas which need it.

The focus must now return to where it belongs: the pursuit of a top-class striker. That’s the priority. If that means going to Brøndby, cap in hand with a big cheque, so be it. That’s the price you pay when you sell your top striker mid-season.

That’s the price you pay when everyone knows you’re sitting on a pile of cash and desperate to spend some of it.

If the people running our club had the ability to think even six inches ahead, these situations wouldn’t happen. But this is where we are. At least we can shut down one unrealistic rumour and concentrate on solving the real problems—and let’s not kid ourselves, there are one or two of them.

We’ve signed Jota as the left-sided attacking midfielder we needed, the player the manager identified as a key priority going into this window. Signing another left-sided attacker on top of him, in the same window, doesn’t just seem unlikely; it seems completely unnecessary. Daizen Maeda and Nicolas Kuhn have been two of our best players this season. Most of us would be thrilled to see them continue in those positions for the foreseeable future.

If it’s not going to be the big lad from Brøndby, then it’ll have to be someone else. The Álex Valle fiasco today has reminded us all of the risks inherent in loan signings. Developing other clubs’ players should be a nonstarter for a Celtic team trying to make strides in Europe.

That said, I’m not entirely against signing a player who’s out of favour at their current club—sometimes that’s what’s left on the table, as top clubs rarely sell their best players in January. (Yes, that’s a dig.) But this window has been infuriating, and bringing back a couple of familiar faces doesn’t solve the bigger issues Brendan Rodgers faces every time he picks his team.

Rodgers wants his own players. He doesn’t want loanees we have no chance of keeping. He certainly won’t accept further players being brought to the team who he did not have a hand in signing. He wanted to use this window to lay the foundations for the summer. That will have been taken away from him unless we go out, spend serious money, and bring in serious firepower.

Rodgers could not have been clearer today when asked about the Norwegian rumour. He knows nothing about it. If this is someone else at the club taking a punt, they have no business doing that. Clearly, we’ve learned nothing from two summers ago, when the manager was handed a bunch of players signed by someone else and rightly rejected every single one of them. £7 million is far too much money to throw at a player only for the manager to publicly disassociate himself from the move.

The people at Celtic Park need to focus on the job at hand—securing the players we need in the next five days. It’s ludicrous that we’ve left ourselves in this position yet again, but it’s the Celtic way. High risk, last-minute scrambling, looking for bargains while sitting on bank vaults stacked high with cash.

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