CELTIC manager Brendan Rodgers said the club could have an additional striker on board by the time the club's Champions League play-off first leg tie against Astana comes round on Wednesday, on the same night the Parkhead side were heavily linked with 20-year-old South African central defender Rivaldo Coetzee.
The Ajax Cape Town player, who has 22 caps for his country, emerged last night as a credible target for the club, just as Rodgers conceded he may be forced into a U-turn when it came to his previously stated plans of running with two recognised centre forwards, Moussa Dembele and Leigh Griffiths. With Griffiths only risked for half an hour from the bench last night with a calf issue and Dembele out till September with a hamstring injury, Rodgers said he has been forced to reconsider those plans ahead of the meeting with the Kazakhs.
“I will definitely have to look at it a little closer," he said. "My vision is to have two strikers available and fit, pushing each other. But if there’s an unavailability and it’s consistent, then I need to seriously look at that.
“The guys are doing great for us," he added. "And we are not conceding. James [Forrest] is doing great at times, Tom [Rogic] has played up there as well. But the dynamic of the team is obviously better when you have a number nine who can actually play the role.”
Asked if something could happen in time to be a wild card addition to his squad ahead of the play-off round, Rodgers added: “It’s really about the availability of a player. We’ll look to bring in quality if it becomes available. It’s something we have been working towards over the course of the last few weeks."
Rodgers admitted was Griffiths' fitness was an ongoing issue ahead of Wednesday. “We wanted Leigh to get 90 minutes but his calf was playing up again," he said. "So we assessed it and thought it was maybe too big a risk. He felt fine this morning, so he got his half hour at the end of the game."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel