Muzzy_Larsson

This is a large part of my point.

Can I ask a question and I honestly don't mean this to be facetious in any way. Every year I hear media, pundits, fans et al talk about finishing high enough up in the league to qualify for the Europa League and then the following season EPL (mainly the mid to lower level sides that qualify) teams treat it with complete disregard in the main, fielding weakened teams and crashing out even before the group stages in a lot of cases (Burnley, West Ham, Soton for example). Why the obvious disregard for European football nowadays? Is finishing 9th in the EPL as opposed to 15th genuinely seen as a greater achievement than winning or getting to the final of European competition? The very notion seems bonkers to me. The added irony is the Europa League is probably a far more attainable route to qualifying for the Champions League for clubs like Leicester, West Ham, Everton, Wolves, etc than qualifying through the league.

Think this is a very accurate and balanced piece on Rodgers's signings while at Celtic. I guess the big positives for us from Rodgers time are Dembele (although it's widely believed this was agreed prior to Rodgers arriving), Sinclair, although his form has dipped dramatically in the last 18 months, Ntcham and Eduoard. The latter two can be quite inconsistent but I'm hoping this is simply down to age as on their day they are terrific players, we rejected a bid of £15m for Ntcham from Porto last summer. Transfers don't tell the whole story though as what Rodgers is superb at and which really elevated us to another level was his ability to develop the young players we already had, guys like McGregor, Forrest, Christie, Tierney (although it was clear he was going to be a star anyway) saved us an absolute fortune in the transfer market. The bit that was interesting in that piece from a Celtic perspective I thought was where Rodgers said he took full responsibility for the Comperr signing. At the time and even now this smacked to me of him sticking up for his mate Congerton as it's widely known Congerton has tried to sign him everywhere he has been. He must be utter dogshit as even under Lennon he's not been anywhere near the side. Hendry was and is also a disasterous signing, a terrible player who will have no future at the club. The latter was very much a Rodgers signing though as he was vocal about how impressed he was with him when we played Dundee. There have been another couple of absolute disasters which we have wasted decent money on by our standards, Kouassi probably being the most high profile after Comperr. As fantastic a coach as Rodgers is his main weakness imo is in the transfer market, his record at all his clubs makes pretty grim reading, particularly after the first 1 or 2 windows for some reason. I believe a large part of it at Celtic was that charlatan Congerton who he brought along with him mind you. I think the key in this regard with Rodgers is to harness him within a wider recruitment process, allow him to be a stakeholder but leave identification of talent to the wider recruitment team. The promising thing from the couple of things I've read is that he seems to be happy that this is going to be the case at Leicester and he'll be happy coaching the players he's given that meet the criteria for what he feels the team needs. His narrative when he first arrived at Celtic was very different in that he was very public that he believed the manager should have full control over transfers, voicing his displeasure around the transfer commitee at Liverpool. So why the big mind shift you might ask? My theory is this is two-fold, he thought he was much bigger than everything else at Celtic and thought he could call the shots without question in this respect and secondly I think he may be more self-aware in this respect now in that there has been a realisation that perhaps identification of players is not his strong point and as such is happy to focus on what he does best which is coaching and developing players.

Yeah he's our record singing, he's still a little inconsistent but is a big game player and has turned it on against decent sides in Europe this season. Once he adds the consistency which will come as he's still young we'll get double what we paid for him comfortably imo, similar to what we got for Dembele. Felt sorry for the guy to an extent this season as for the most part he's been our only fit striker and hasn't had any sort of rest.

Yeah apparently so, just before Lennon brought him up to Celtic.

Was part of Neil Lennon's background team first time round at Celtic, not sure what he done tbh other than by all accounts being Lennon's drinking buddy Met him a couple of times and seemed like a great guy mind you.

The latter is a very good point, Shane Long for example would struggle to score in a brothel. Always thought Tadic was a more than decent player at Southampton.

Nail on the head.

Nah Dembele and Griffiths never played together, Dembele was the main man and rightly so, because he was pretty injury prone though and the sheer volume of games we play Griffiths got his fair share of games also. At the start of this season before Dembele was sold he did play Dembele and Eduoard together whenever he could though. He is a fan of playing 3 at the back on occasion to allow for playing two strikers.

What has happend to Dolberg, remember a couple of years ago a lot of hype around him and him being thought of as the jewel in the Ajax crown. Not kicked on or something?

Real Madrid quoted as being interested in Ziyech in last few days, Barcelona and Spurs looking at Van De Beekapparently and you'd imagine Neres will have his pick of clubs. Financially these players may be within your reach but they'll likely all have offers from Champions League clubs that they'd be more inclined to take.

Agreed, he's the sort of player I could see bombing in the EPL or being a bit of a luxury player a la Ozil. I don't think he would be Rodgers' cup of tea either, doesn't work hard enough off the ball.

The early part of his career he played wide right so could slot in there if needs be. The thing with him is he's so versatile we'd need to sign 2-3 players to properly replace him. He's actually naturally left footed but is also very good on his right also.

To put it bluntly, Gordon Strachan, he left him out of a two year period qualifying campaigns in favour of Barry f&£king Bannan and being the stubborn little man Strachan is the more the media, fans and everyone were up in arms about it the more stubborn he became in terms of not including him. I wouldn't use caps for Scotland as a barometer tbh, the national team are a joke, most players don't even want to play for them and pull out of squads and/or retire.

All valid points I just don't think he's suited to the premier league.

I don't think Aspas at his peak had the physicality or athleticism to be a success in the premier league so at 31 now I doubt he'd be a good signing.

This post is bang on the money.

Put in man of the match performances and scored in the Champions League and Europa League against Bayern Munich and Zenit St Petersburg.

No problem, Benkovic is a great player, has no obvious weakness in his game and could see him coping comfortably in the EPL, nothing seems to faze him and he always seems very calm. His injury record is a concern it has to be said, looking at it positively though, given european qualifying, europe proper, cup competitions we play in excess of 60 games every season (from early July it took until April before we had a midweek without a match), with effectively a 2 week break between the season ending and starting so we don't get the chance to rest players and manage them properly, with less games you could manage him in that regard a lot better at Leicester which may see the end of his injury problems.

Tbh looking at Arsenal, where they are going as a club and even man for man in terms of the first 11 of the two clubs I wouldn't necessarily be choosing Arsenal over Leicester.

Guy on the Celtic forum I'm on, seems to have a decent source at the club and is right more often than he's wrong when he airs things believes Calum McGregor is pushing for a move to Leicester in the summer as Rodgers wants him, I'd imagine he'd cost at least £15m but I'm hoping we'd get nearer £20m for him. I can see there being an element of truth in this one as Rodgers loved him and turned him into the player he is today, he was largely a fringe player before Rodgers arrived. I'd be disappointed to lose him as he is a terrific player but if we got £15-20m for him it would be good business for us as it's an area we are pretty strong and would add to the funds we already have to strengthen areas where we are pretty weak. Also if we got Benkovic for another year (unlikely I know) as part of any deal I'd drive him down there myself! In terms of what you guys would be getting with McGregor. A very comfortable and accomplished footballer and technically excellent, never wastes a pass and it's not sideways passing like a lot of midfielders these days he attacks and exploits space very well with his passing and running ability. Where he would fit in, in your side I don't know, particularly if you sign Tielemens, the thing about McGregor however is he is equally effective playing in a deep playmaking position as he is in an advanced attacking midfield role.

This is bang on. Rodgers likes to do this a lot, change players positions, etc. Like you said has been a masterstroke with Ajer, still only 20 and looks like he's going to be some player.

He didn't really our full backs were always bombing on and giving us width, probably too much to our detriment at times. Tierney is good defensively also but his main asset for us is getting forward and creating.

We were linked with this guy in January and we most probably identified him due to our scouting/player link-up whatever you want to call it with Man City. I think this is nothing more than lazy journalism and the media rehashing a story about a player they believe Rodgers was previously interested in.