Brendan Rodgers insisted yesterday that he wasn’t pointing any fingers when it came to explaining the lack of signings the club made in the January transfer window, but he was hardly taking any prisoners either.

The majority of Celtic fans seem irate with the business – or lack, thereof – that their club has managed to pull off, and their anger has been directed squarely at a board many of them deem to be holding the club back by their tight grip on the purse strings.

The manager, who had himself called for at least four ‘quality’ additions during the winter window, is sympathetic to their position. And little wonder, given he has been handed £3m acquisition Nick Kuhn – the outlay for which has already largely been recouped by the sales of David Turnbull and Yosuke Ideguchi - and loan signing Adam Idah, and been told to get on with the task of retaining the title.

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The crucial context, of course, is that the club’s last accounts showed a balance north of £70m sitting in their bank account. It won’t all be there now, but in refusing to speculate with a significant portion of it, the prevailing feeling is that they have taken an almighty gamble with the destination of the Premiership trophy.

If Rodgers’ tone was conciliatory when addressing the window, many of his words were nevertheless revealing. The club has to be braver, in his view. There is disagreement, clearly, between the level of player he thinks Celtic should be targeting, and the money his board are willing to commit to that aim.

It is his job, he says, to talk them around. And he clearly still has some convincing to do, much to the anger and frustration of supporters who are befuddled by their club’s frugality.

“Listen, I totally get it, I totally understand it,” Rodgers said.

“If you are a Celtic supporter in the stand and you see that there’s money there and you want your team to progress, then of course that’s a reasonable question.

“I’m not going to start finger pointing at anyone. I was always told that if you start pointing fingers, you’ll get three pointing back at yourself.

“So, I think we want to be better, and there are ways that I hopefully can try and convince us to be braver in the market, purely in the sense that we can develop and improve, that’s why that is.

“I want us to get better, you know? You’ve seen the success we’ve had with players, and you can’t have success with all of them, that’s the nature of it.

“But I get why supporters would have an annoyance, I totally understand it. There’s the season ticket money, they are buying things in the club shops, everything in how they follow the team, I get all that.

“But there’s no doubt that we can be better, for me, in the market. And that’s something that is my job to try and do my very best to convince that we can take these next steps.

“To have players to develop and grow, every club will do that, but of course you then need to then have players that can help those players grow as well. That’s key.

“When I was here before we had Odsonne (Edouard) who was £9m. So, we can do it. But it’s always about balance.

“There’s a great lot of work being done here by the board to put the club in this position. But it’s now about – can we then balance that by taking that risk and having that bravery? And not having to loan a player and having ones coming in that are ready made.

“It’s just that progress. And if we want to develop as a club that’s what we’re going to have to do.

“There’s no getting away from that. You have to move on and progress rather than just continually just developing one, take them out, put another in, two or three years of development, then take them out again. You want to progress.”

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If that all sounds eerily familiar to Celtic fans, then perhaps it is because they have heard it before. Whether that was during Rodgers’ first spell in charge, or last January, when then manager Ange Postecoglou was beating a similar drum.

“He wasn’t able to convince [the board] but hopefully I can in time,” Rodgers added.

“Or maybe not. But let’s wait and see.

“I don’t want a negative feeling around it as it’s not healthy, most importantly for the players as these guys are giving their all.

“Hopefully I can [convince them]. I’m always hopeful that I can do. I don’t think it’s such a massive jump if I’m honest.

“If I can let the club feel that I want to be here to see that through – which I genuinely do – and be a manager who can be here for a number of years, and develop the youths…as that’s always part of trimming the squad.

“You bring really good players in who have been around the game or have that level that you want as they’ll improve you. It’s a bigger picture one for me so I will never say that we can’t as I think we’ve shown that in the past.

“You look at the ones like Jota or Carter-Vickers and what they cost. If you have that balance of those real good quality players with some young, up-and-coming ones like Matt O’Riley for £1.5m, and when he leaves it will be for a lot more than that.

“It’s better with the two together rather than purely being young players, as they can’t do it all.”