BRENDAN Rodgers believes he has bagged himself two exciting young players in his January signings Oliver Burke and Timothy Weah.
The Scotland winger, who is a West Bromwich Albion player, and PSG striker have both signed on loan for Celtic until the end of this season and the two have trained with their new team-mates at their Dubai training camp.
Rodgers has not finished his winter window shopping but, so far, is happy with the business which his club has done.
The Celtic manager said: "Oliver is obviously a very exciting talent. He burst onto the scene at Nottingham Forest and I remember watching a game and thinking what a talent he was, but then it all went very quickly for him.
“From Forest, to Leipzig to a new country, new style, new way of working and he wasn’t there that long before he came back, so it’s a very important time for him at 21.
“His key strengths are his pace and his power and an eye for goal, but what he should enjoy is that he’s coming to a good coaching environment and he’s going to need to work in that side of the game.
“But in my conversations with him, he is he’s very keen to learn, he’s very keen to take on that responsibility and there’s lot of elements of his game that we think we change a little that can change a lot for him individually, but then will obviously benefit our team.
“His pace and power is phenomenal and he has a nice touch on the ball. Running in behind and into goal, so we hope we can utilise that and improve his quality and his game."
Weah, 18, is more of an unknown quantity and Rodgers hopes the striker can prove himself to be the latest gem to be discovered, following in the footsteps of Moussa Dembele.
Rodgers added: "He’s a young talent who is a full international player and has a long career ahead of him, but his natural attributes are his pace and his technique and he’s hungry.
“He’s been in the PSG squad and featured for them in pre-season and, obviously, with the quality of players they have, it’s difficult for him to get in and get game time.
“He’ll see Celtic as a great possibility and he comes in and adds to the players that are here and challenge, whilst getting experience of playing for a really big club and having that pressure to win.
“So he has real good qualities technically, tactically, and he’s improving his game. Physically, he’s very good, fast and strong and he’ll add competition to the squad."
Celtic may be a relatively rich club but, as Rodgers stated to the club website, the transfer market is an increasingly more difficult arena for him to operate.
He said: "In my time at the club, there has been lots of change, the market has changed quite considerably really when you lose players.
“We came out of the summer where we lost key players and the players up until this point have done very well, but it’s always important that you can improve and that will be down to the availability and, of course always with Celtic, the affordability of the player
“These are key areas which we hope we can bring new players into the squad.
“I think that any good team needs competition and that’s what being at the big clubs is all about, but they have to be good players.
“It’s very important that you can always add and the best time to move forward is when you are succeeding.
“We have done great over the past two and half years, but we have to keep improving and developing and keep looking ahead.
“It’s a key time to improve.”
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