CELTIC brought in veteran defender Kolo Toure yesterday on a one-year deal – but Brendan Rodgers remains in the hunt for a wildcard signing for Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League qualifier against Astana.
The 35-year-old Ivory Coast internationalist is expected to finalise his move to Celtic today, but he will not board the place to Kazakhstan, with Rodgers believing that the game comes too soon for him.
That leaves Celtic eligible to bring in one player on a wildcard entry into the competition – but realistically the clock is ticking on that with the Parkhead side flying out on Monday morning.
“I would think that Wednesday would be too soon for him, I’d probably be looking more towards the weekend, give him some game time against Barcelona to assess where he’s at before the following week,” said Rodgers. “He’ll need to stay and work. All being well, he’ll get a good week’s training.”
The Celtic manager was coy on the liklihood of another signing before tomorrow’s flight. “That’s something that we need to wait and see,” he said. “We’ve got some work going on behind the scenes so hopefully we can get some business done. It’s obviously going to be tight, we leave Monday afternoon.”
However, Rodgers expects the player to have a significant role this term. “I brought him into Liverpool to add that bit of experience and help to the centre-halves there at the time, and I think you saw from his impact there, particularly last season, he was a very important player for Jurgen [Klopp] towards the end of the season and played in the Europa League final,” he said.
“In the big games he was outstanding for me when I was there, and he looks after himself. He’s a wonderful professional. With a lot of young players in our squad, he can really help them and be of great experience to someone like Scott Brown, who is a wonderful leader.
"He needs support and help around him as well, so it will be nice for Scott [Brown] to have someone behind him who’s got that real big game experience. He can do very well for us.”
And the Celtic skipper too was pleased with the signing, vocalising his inimitable enthusiam. “He is 35 but he is still rapid and built like a brickshit house, shall we say. He is a great player who has been around. He has been at top clubs and was part of the Invincibles at Arsenal. He is a leader on and off the field so he will bring great experience for us.”
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