Brendan Rodgers has reacted to questions over whether it was a mistake to sell Kyogo to Rennes for £10 million eight days ago, having failed to sign a striker before the winter transfer window closed.
With Adam Idah now Celtic’s number one striker and Johnny Kenny and Daizen Maeda as backups, supporters had felt that, with the Hoops receiving a sizable fee for Kyogo, the money would be reinvested immediately in a new striker before the deadline. However, that simply did not happen.
Given that Maeda consistently starts on the left in the starting XI, asking him to play up top represents poor planning following Kyogo’s exit midway through the season. However, Rodgers was quick to explain that the Japanese forward’s departure was more complex than some had previously been led to believe.
When asked ‘Was it a mistake to allow Kyogo to go, without having the replacement nailed down beforehand?’
Rodgers said: (Celtic FC YouTube), “Some people will say that, but you don’t have the depth of knowledge that I have on the player and working with him, going back to the summer.
“It’s a fair enough thing to say. You can very easily say, Well, you should really have someone in the door before you let him go. But there was a situation with that player which meant that wasn’t the case. And that was something that had been running for a number of months, not just for the few days before he left.
“So, like I said, I repeat, if a player does not want to be here, then we do the best deal and move on.”
It appears that Kyogo’s exit was not a case of keeping him until the end of the season and then selling in the summer. The Japanese forward was actively pushing to leave as soon as possible for an extended period of time. Although Celtic failed to sign a replacement, there was never a possibility that Kyogo would stay.
That leads to questions over why Celtic weren’t more desperate to sign a new striker over the last month. With forwards often winning games, losing the Hoops’ talisman of the last three and a half years can’t be understated. With £10 million banked, the funds were there to be reinvested in a striker who could hit the ground running.
