Sir Kenny Dalglish: Brendan Rodgers should have kept his frustration over lack of Celtic signings behind closed doors

BRENDAN RODGERS used his media conferences over the past week to express his frustration.

He feels there’s been a lack of quality signings added to his squad during this transfer window.

For example, he wanted to bring John McGinn to Celtic, yet the midfielder ended up signing for Aston Villa.

Brendan has pretty much said that if improvements aren’t made, then he’d have to question what more he could do for the club.

Now, having won back-to-back Trebles with the club and got them into the Champions League group stages two seasons on the trot, he has plenty of kudos.

And every manager reserves the right to voice an opinion, and not to want to see their team stand static or even regress.

However, I’d prefer to see managers sort things out with the hierarchy behind closed doors.

That’s always the way I tried do things when I managed football clubs.

Also, I think managers shouldn’t get involved in speaking publicly about a club’s finances and how the bigwigs run the business.

Providing the board are not interfering in who comes and goes in your squad, then a manager shouldn’t speak about business.

The best way to make progress – on the park and off the park – is for there to be harmony.

A manager wants to win games of football so he can enjoy his weekend.

The likes of Celtic chief executive, Peter Lawwell, and major shareholder, Dermot Desmond, brought Brendan to the club.

All they will want is for their judgement in doing that to continue to be justified.

Now, in general terms – and this is not specific to Brendan’s situation – if you can’t sort things out to your satisfaction, then you have to go.

If you are not happy, there is no point in hanging about. You always have a choice and you do what you think is right.

But I don’t think that would be the best move for either party here.

I’m sure the Celtic board will not be considering replacing him.

Listen, managers and coaches all over the world have frustrations. And not just about transfers.

There are all sorts of things that can have you scratching your head and leave you wondering what it’s all about.

Of course, in terms of trying to bring new players to a football club, then it will always be disappointing when the club doesn’t bring in the players you want.

All a manager can do is identify his targets, and then it us up to the money men.

Ultimately, the hierarchy hold the power as they are the only people who can get deals done.

It is important to bring in new faces every summer. It’s good for the players, manager and supporters to see a couple of real quality players added to the squad.

There needs to be a freshness. If it doesn’t happen, then there is frustration.

You also need to be mindful of the market and the inflated prices.

Now, I think Celtic have benefitted from that this summer with Stuart Armstrong.

He is a good player – but to get £8m for him from Southampton is probably over the odds.

That can be down to really good negotiation skills by the selling club. But, equally, there are times you need to balance that and pay a wee bit more than you’d really like to when you are looking to bring players in.

But there is a conundrum for all involved at Celtic.

How do you progress and better the first two years under Brendan?

Yeah, getting to the last 16 of the Champions League would signal that – but what kind of spend would be required to do that?

I’d say this isn’t the right time to be assessing the transfer window for Celtic.

It can be properly judged on Sept 1 when the window has closed.

There is still plenty of time for some excellent business to be done.

What is more immediate for Celtic is the need to get a good result on Tuesday night away to AEK Athens in the Champions League after the 1-1 draw in the first leg.

They still have a good chance, but some of their results away from home in Europe would leave you feeling a bit concerned.

Rangers had a good 3-1 win at home to Maribor.

They are more than decent and were in Liverpool’s Champions League section last season.

A two-goal cushion for Steven Gerrard’s men is good, but there is still much work to be done in Slovenia on Thursday.

The surprise European result for me was Hibs drawing 0-0 at home to Molde.

My goodness, I can’t believe there wasn’t a goal scored in a match involving Neil Lennon’s team!

Clearly, they would have loved a 1-0 win, but 0-0 isn’t a bad one.

I fancy Hibs to score over there because Neil has had good results in Europe, and knows how to set a team up to score away from home.

Let’s hope all three clubs progress to the final play-off round.