Adam Idah fee is a 'great deal' for Celtic, says Brendan Rodgers
Brendan Rodgers believes Celtic secured a "great deal" with the purchase of Adam Idah as he thanked the board for showing faith in his call.
Idah has re-joined Celtic from Norwich for a fee reported to be worth £8.5million with the potential to rise by £1million more, after hitting nine goals in 19 matches on loan including a Scottish Gas Scottish Cup final winner.
The figure puts Idah's transfer in a similar bracket to the club-record fee paid for Odsonne Edouard in 2018 during Rodgers' first spell in charge.
Many Celtic fans had been concerned over the club's summer transfer business, which has now seen them replace Joe Hart with Kasper Schmeichel and bring back Idah and Paulo Bernardo following loan spells.
Asked about the spending outlay, Rodgers said: "You can never win, can you? I mean, 'you don't spend money', you do spend money, 'you spend too much'?
"We've got a great deal. I know the player that we have here and for me it's just a case of just getting him moving in the direction that I believe he can move in. He has all the talent, he's 6ft 3in, quick, strong, his touch is good, he can score goals and he has big moments in big games.
"For me there's still areas that he can improve on, of course and as a young player that's what you'd expect, but I really think that whatever money we paid for him, he's worth every single penny of it. And he'll demonstrate in the next 24 months that he will be worth a lot more than that.
"I wanted to do everything I could and I thank the board for reaching out and getting Adam here because I think he can really flourish."
Rodgers had stressed the need for quality over quantity after returning to Celtic last summer while recruitment plans were in place that saw eight players arrive. None of them started in the cup final or in the opening two matches of this season.
"It's just the attitude to risk," Rodgers said. "You can sign a player for one, two million pounds, fine. And you might sell them for £10million. But you can sign a player for seven or eight, maybe sell them for 30 to 40.
"It's the same thing but it's really trusting the process and trusting a team of people that can work very, very hard and then allowing you to get the players in.
"For example, if you spend £18million and you spend it on nine players, I would hope there's a possibility to spend £18million on three players."
Celtic remain in the hunt for new players and their plans will not hinge on the future of Matt O'Riley, who remains the subject of serious interest from Atalanta.
Rodgers said: "We don't want to lose Matt O'Reilly. But still, we need to strengthen in certain areas. And we have the resource to do that. So, selling players won't determine what we can bring in.
"The guys here have absolutely been brilliant and as we've moved on and connected, it's been great. But you always have to look to improve.
"Not only that, there are some gaps in our squad where we're light in terms of numbers, and cover and competition. So, that's what we have to work very hard to try and achieve by the end of the window."
Celtic will make a late decision on the fitness of Kyogo Furuhashi for Sunday's Premier Sports Cup tie against Hibernian after the Japanese striker suffered a shoulder problem in last week's league win at Easter Road. Mikey Johnston will miss out with a facial injury.
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