Declan Rice to Celtic transfer revelation as Brendan Rodgers issues early January deals warning

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Brendan Rodgers insists he’s learned to take nothing for granted in the January transfer market – after being on the brink of bringing Declan Rice to Celtic during his first term in charge.In a sensational revelation, the Celtic boss has told how close he came to landing the £105million Arsenal man for a bargain-basement fee at a time when Rice was struggling to make the big breakthrough as a youngster at West Ham.

And Rodgers admits the experience of getting his fingers burned on that occasion has made him cautious of getting his hopes up as he attempts to bring in “quality” reinforcements during the winter window.Rodgers has spoken repeatedly of the need to strengthen his starting XI throughout a testing first six months back at the helm.

But when asked if deals for some of his top targets are close to being completed early in the New Year, he said: “Ideally you’d want to get them in early.

Deals can be complicated and things that might have been almost there for three or four months can fall away.“That’s always the challenge – it only takes one injury to change the situation with a player who was lined up to come in.