Dermot Desmond and co swooned by Brendan Rodgers' Celtic transfer power move as Wanyama 2.0 hunt deemed vital

A pundit reckons Brendan Rodgers has enticed Dermot Desmond and co with his Celtic transfer vision - and now must put a destroyer on his agenda.

The major shareholder has backed the boss with big money deals for the likes of Adam Idah and Arne Engels this season. A move for Jota has been signed and sealed while Kieran Tierney is going to make his return to Celtic in the summer transfer window.

A place in the Champions League knockout play-off round stage has also been sealed, where they will face Bayern Munich. Stephen McGinn believes that Desmond and the rest of the board have been bowled over by success in the market during Rodgers’ second reign, allowing him to persuade them to make big moves.

One of the next should be a player in the mould of Victor Wanyama. The former Premiership midfielder told Go Radio: “In terms of recruitment just now, obviously, with Jotica coming in, I do think they need to get a striker in before the window. I think to keep improving next year in Champions League, they have to keep making small improvements. And I do think Brendan Rodgers has.

“He's really improving the Celtic team. He's getting the board to spend and be really ambitious. I think the defensive midfielder, I think that's a must going into the next season. I think the midfield is the best midfield in Scotland.

“It's more than enough to win the league. I think it's been a midfield that's performed really well in games such as Leipzig, Slovan Bratislava. I think it's been good.

“I think about the really top games. I think sometimes you need to take your medicine and change sometimes. I don't think Callum McGregor can just be in there himself. You look at some of the games like Julian Brandt, he ran riot Germany in the Dortmund game. I thought Mario Pasalic could have put the game away from Celtic in the first half. He was arriving late into the box, the Atalanta game.

“I thought Celtic get away with a couple of times in the first half. Morgan Rogers, I think obviously a world class talent, so good, so much potential, but doesn't often get the amount of space that he got last night and was able to find.

“So I think that's an area of the park, whether it's a slight change when you're playing the really top teams, by putting someone in there to help with Callum McGregor. Or it's maybe to go out and try and recruit someone that's of that type, of a Scott Brown, a Victor Wanyama, some of the good Celtic teams that have done well in Europe.

“They've always had that kind of holding midfielder that just knows the right times to break up play or give away the right foul, maybe be in the referee's ear and slow the game down. I think just really small margins against the top teams.”