Chris Sutton states who is to blame for Celtic’s January transfer failures after Brendan Rodgers’ comments

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Chris Sutton has made it clear that Celtic’s lack of action in the January transfer window is a ‘collective’ blame.

From needing a left-back to wanting to sign players of greater quality and experience. Never mind one of those players arriving, a total of zero entered the Parkhead door.

As you can imagine, the Celtic fans were rightfully annoyed and frustrated by it all, with Brendan Rodgers coming out and stating that the club can ‘be braver’ in the transfer market.

Chris Sutton was keen for the boss to come out and ‘explain’ those comments, so ‘everyone can understand where the blame lies’, as he told Sky Sports Football (03/02/24 at 11:55 am).

It’s pretty clear, for months now, Brendan Rodgers has called for better quality. Those comments were heard loud and clear.

Since then, the performances haven’t exactly improved on the pitch, albeit, the team did its job against Rangers.

But the powers that be have known this for a long while, yet the lack of activity in the winter was alarming and now concerning.

That’s why Chris Sutton wanted clarity from those transfer comments and reasoning behind why the recruitment, or lack of it, was such a mess.

Celtic’s transfer business

“Brendan Rodgers said that he wanted quality in, then signing two players, Nicolas Kuhn and Adam Idah,” said Sutton. “They are both, as I see it, development players.

“When Brendan talked about bringing quality in. I think everybody expected it to be more experienced tried and tested players. For whatever reason, they haven’t got over the line.

“The bottom line is that they didn’t learn from their mistakes. They messed up the summer transfer window and that cost them in them in the Champions League. A really disappointing European campaign, which hasn’t helped the mood.

“Then January comes around, you are thinking after what Brendan said that Celtic are going to be pro-active. Celtic have needed a left-back, as far as I can see, for a long, long time. They haven’t recruited in that area.

“There is a bit of a blame game going on, in terms of whose fault it is. I think it’s a collective. Brendan when he comes out and says ‘the need to be braver’. I think he needs to explain that, so everyone can understand where the blame lies.”

More pressure on Brendan Rodgers

This just adds even further unwanted pressure on the manager and the players because fans will vent their frustration if results continue to drop.

What’s even worse for Rodgers is that the performances under him have been worrying. He can talk about transfers or lack of them all he wants, but that shouldn’t stop him from making his current players perform better.

It’s like some people forget that a lot of these players are Treble winners. They looked completely different under Ange Postecoglou last season.

Yet everything seems to be turning on its head and Rodgers has to take a lot of responsibility for that.