Brendan Rodgers highlights Celtic's need to replace quality with quality

Brendan Rodgers says Celtic only want "players of quality"

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers says the club "still have work to do" in the transfer market after losing Stuart Armstrong and Patrick Roberts.

Though Celtic have formalised deals for Odsonne Edouard and Scott Bain, who had been on loan last season, the club have had bids for John McGinn rejected.

And the Hibernian midfielder is now a target for Aston Villa.

"We've lost players so the bare minimum we need to do is replace that," said Rodgers.

"We've lost Stuart Armstrong and we haven't got a replacement yet. Patrick Roberts has gone out and we haven't got a replacement yet. These are areas that we need to complete deals on and get that support into the team.

"Our job this year was pretty straight forward in terms of bringing players in, we only wanted players of quality."

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Turning to the topic of McGinn, Rodgers admits not completing a deal for the Hibs midfielder "left the door open" for Aston Villa to show an interest.

"He is a player that we clearly wanted to bring here," he said Rodgers. "I was really interested in bringing him in from a few months back.

"We haven't been able to complete a deal and of course when you don't complete a deal on a player it always opens the door for other teams - a club like Aston Villa, who have clearly interest in him, who have a big history of their own, a great club with excellent facilities and now financial backing.

"So we have to wait and see on that one."

Meanwhile, Celtic have rejected a bid from Fulham for Belgium defender Dedryck Boyata.

"We don't need to sell any players," said Rodgers. "We've had two seasons now of Champions League [group stage] football and the club being on a high.

"We re-signed a player in Odsonne, which was a no-brainer, really. He was a top talent and we could see that last year so we've got one player in and, like I say, we had a few other positions where we wanted to increase the quality in our squad.

"And thus far we still have work to do on that. We're hoping that we can do that business and do that work.

"When you're a coach, you want to work with the players as quickly as you possibly can but until it's done then we have to work with the players that's here and the players here at the moment are doing very well for us."

Analysis

Former Celtic captain Stephen McManus on BBC Radio Scotland's Sportsound

"Brendan Rodgers and Celtic, they're obviously taking their time. They're taking their time to make the XI stronger.

"If you're going to make your starting XI stronger, your squad's then going to be enhanced. There's no point Celtic bringing in players who are going to come in and make the bench stronger.

"For Celtic to get to the next level, which is the Champions League, they need to then look to improve their starting XI and that's obviously the reason why they're taking their time to get the right personnel but also the right characteristics."