Brendan Rodgers is aiming to get Celtic’s January transfer business done early this month as he looks to get players in and move others out.
The Hoops boss also revealed that the club were close to signing current Arsenal and England star Declan Rice during his last spell in charge, but the move was scuppered when the then West Ham midfielder picked up an injury.
Celtic go into the winter break eight points ahead of Rangers at the top of the Premiership as they look to secure their third title in a row.
He said: “The club will do everything they can to support what we need, and what the team needs, so there’s lots of work going on in the background and I’m pretty sure in this early period of the month we can get a bit of joy and get one or two in.”
But as well as bringing new faces in, the manager is aware that there will need to be just as many going the other direction to avoid the risk of having an over bloated sqaud.
He said: “That will have to be the case for multiple reasons, for the players themselves and their football careers they need to play, for financial reasons you can’t be carrying too many players that aren’t contributing, and it obviously allows us the opportunity to bring players in.
“But I think that is just a natural process.”
Rodgers knows they will have to be patient to get the right players and that sometimes the transfer window can be a complex situation as he revealed how close he was to securing the services of the now £100m international midfield star Rice during his first spell in Glasgow.
He said: “We spent about three months trying to get Declan Rice in, he was all set to sign and then all of a sudden he had an injury and he stayed in England, forced his way into the team and the rest is history.
“So that’s not the clubs’ fault, that’s just the way it goes.
“We have a number of positions that we want to prioritise of course, there are positions that we won’t be able to do anything about until the summer, but we want to improve the squad and the club are happy to support that.”
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