Celtic told the board went ‘above’ Brendan Rodgers and ‘cut their losses’ with one player

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It’s pretty hard to try and find the words to sum up what Celtic did this summer in the transfer market.

But if one player can sum up the whole window, then it’s probably departed striker Adam Idah and his sale to Swansea City.

After signing for Celtic for £9 million from Norwich City during the summer of 2024, Idah was sealing a £7 million move back to the English Championship on transfer deadline day in 2025.

But how Idah’s move to Swansea went about has been heavily criticised, and questions have been raised as to the role Brendan Rodgers and the board played in it all.

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Celtic board selling Adam Idah for £7 million

First of all, Rodgers stated that Idah wouldn’t be sold until a replacement was in the building, which never happened, yet he was still up and down the motorway from Glasgow to Swansea, not knowing where his future lay.

That was touched upon by Gordon Dalziel and Cammy Bell on Clyde 1 Superscoreboard, including how the board were the ones to push the transfer through by going ‘above’ Rodgers and ‘cutting their losses’ on Idah.

The funny thing about all of this is that many Celtic fans agreed with Idah’s sale because they felt he wasn’t performing, and they were delighted with the £7 million banked by the club.

But, as the Clyde 1 pundits spoke about, how the deal went about wasn’t right.

Dalziel: “Here is where the alarming thing for me was. Brendan Rodgers said on the Friday, before the Celtic and Rangers game at Ibrox, that Adam Idah wouldn’t be sold unless they got bodies in.

“On Monday night, Adam Idah was a Swansea player, and they still didn’t have bodies in. What does that tell you about the transfer window? Okay, they brought in some wingers. I think we need to give them time. Let them bed in. Let’s see what they are going to bring.

“But I don’t think Celtic brought in the quality that Brendan Rodgers wanted – you can’t sit and say, ‘we thought we were going to have a player (re Dolberg) in the building.”

Cammy Bell: “Is that the board saying, ‘By the way, we are cutting our losses, so they are going above Brendan Rodgers by leaving him short again.'”

Dalziel: “100%.”

What Brendan Rodgers should have told the Celtic board

Perhaps this is where Rodgers should have put his foot on the accelerator and not allowed this deal to go through, especially given that he lost Kyogo Furuhashi in January.

Yes, Kelechi Iheanacho was signed as a free agent, but you can’t pull the wool over the fans’ eyes that he was the one to replace Idah.

“That’s why I think Brendan Rodgers is very clever in what he does,” added Dalziel. “Brendan is a very experienced manager, of course. He wins trophies. I think he is a very good manager, I am not criticising him.

“But Brendan is clever enough to turn around and say, ‘listen, nobody is going out of the door unless I get players in.’ The board then look at Adam Idah and think, ‘we are getting £6/7 million’, which is a good bit of business because Adam Idah had to get out of Celtic.

“See, if it was just a case of saying, ‘no, we have got to keep bodies’. Yang was going to Birmingham for £3 million. They brought him back, so what the board decided to do was cash in, and then on the Tuesday, when the window shut, they could only go for free transfers, and they are shopping about trying to get bodies in.”