Everything that Brendan Rodgers said to the media after Celtic's 6-4 pre-season win over Queen's Park at The City Stadium
Can we ask you about Daniel Kelly and the current contract impasse? He is entering the last six months and clubs are looking at him. Is that a worry at all?
There's no impasse as Daniel (Kelly) like Rocco (Vata) were both offered a deal, which is valued and with the greatest respect, I have worked with young players and I know the levels of young players and where they're at from a technical perspective and a financial perspective. Both those boys have been offered deals by the club. Rocco was offered it and he was going to be one of the three strikers at Celtic and he decided that that wasn't going to be for him. So he then leaves. That is absolutely fine and we wish him all the very best. Similarly Daniel, as a young player, again, has been offered a really, really good contract by the club. A contract that would see him come into the first-team squad and play and perform and develop because he has a lot of development to do. I've spoken with the agents and the player some months back to say, listen, if we can't tidy this up by the summer, then it's very hard to be with the team in the pre-season. It's really as simple as that.
The question was asked because you like Daniel and you rate him very highly, don't you?
Yes, I like Daniel but he has a lot of work to do and I feel that for him and the family, this is a great place for him to be able to do that. You know, you've got a manager who sees a talent there, who sees the physicality that he has, lots of things, and the areas he needs to brush up on. What a great club and place this is for him to be able to do that. If that's not enough then that's OK. It's absolutely fine. You know, you'll go somewhere else and maybe play but, listen, you never know. We got through until December, but it's just disappointing at this stage that it hasn't happened because he would have had a great opportunity this pre-season. As I said, I know the value both in terms of the players' qualities and the contract offer, the offers that the club gave were very, very good for young players in terms of where they're at, with the greatest respect. Like I said to the club, if they don't accept, then it's OK.
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You are probably sick of being asked about it but is there anything brewing transfer-wise?
No, no, that's natural. It's natural to ask that question. Absolutely. We're a club that needs to improve. We need to improve the squad. So I really hope that we can do that. I mentioned before, about getting at least a couple in before we go to America. That's still the idea. I know there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes. We've had players targeted for a while. It's still bubbling away but it's never easy. I'm hoping then that we can get some in but we all know that we lost three players, and, you know, they were very important players for us. So that there alone demonstrates that we need to make that right and we also have to improve. I'm confident we'll be able to do that. It's just that it's never easy.
Is there any progress on maybe two (Adam Idah and Paulo Bernardo) coming back? Not Joe Hart obviously, because he's got his feet up now.
Joe's busy. He's doing well, actually, he's doing well. So, listen, there are several players that we are looking at. Hopefully, we can do the deals that bring them back and we can improve the squad overall. There are certainly positions that we always have wanted to strengthen and I'm hopeful that we can do that.
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