News about Adam Idah

Never mind who shot JR Ewing. In the days when Dallas was the warm-up act for Match of the Day and Sportscene, the old gunslingers of British management blew their enemies away with a half-time hairdryer. When Stein, Clough and Ferguson ruled the roost, the language of the dressing room was English with a liberal dose of Anglo-Saxon profanities. There was no need for a translator. Times move on and so does football. These days a coach in the English Premier League is more likely to be called Jose or Andoni than Jock or Alex. The age of the old-school British managerial colossus is over.

A city of some 200,000 people on the windswept north-east coast of Scotland, Aberdeen became a home from home for Bojan Miovski. It was the place where the North Macedonia striker felt most welcome, most appreciated and, after two years of rattling in goals, most loved. The hairs on his forearms still stand to attention when he recalls his final farewell to Pittodrie. A late substitute in a 3-1 win over St Mirren in August, the 25-year-old stood on the cusp of his dream move to a top-five European league. Jimmy Thelin's red revolution would have to be staged without the Swede's best player.

From the Yellow Wall in Dortmund to a Highland Wall in Dingwall, there were bound to be a few mental scars for the Celtic players to overcome ahead of this Premiership clash with Ross County. Such was the scale of their humiliation in a 7-1 Champions League thrashing in Germany last Tuesday, plenty of soul-searching was inevitable in the days which followed. Certainly, a Sunday lunchtime kick-off at this most notoriously awkward of venues wouldn't have been top of the list for Brendan Rodgers and his players as they looked to start the rebuild.

STEPHEN McGOWAN: Celtic's latest Champions League calamity offers another excuse to paraphrase an old quote on the definition of madness. When it comes to setting up teams in the Champions League, Brendan Rodgers is making a habit of doing the same things over and over. Defying the growing body of evidence that it doesn't work, he expects a different outcome every time. Over the Northern Irishman's two spells in charge, the Scottish champions have now lost seven goals three times against Europe's elite. There was that thrashing in Barcelona, then another in Paris before they lost six in Madrid last season. Throw in a five against a PSG first time around and the argument for a more pragmatic approach becomes an open and shut case.

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers hailed his players for showing their Champions League mentality in last night's six-goal thrashing of St Johnstone and feels they are ready to go on the front foot against Borussia Dortmund. Rodgers saw his men blow away Saints with a brilliant display that brought two goals from Kyogo Furuhashi and efforts from Paulo Bernardo, Callum McGregor, Daizen Maeda and Adam Idah and kept them top of the Premiership with six wins from six plus six clean sheets.

Brendan Rodgers vowed that he won't make so many changes to his line-up again after Celtic had to dig deep to see off Falkirk. Twice behind in the first half against the Championship outfit, Rodgers made four substitutions on the hour mark which changed the course of the match. Nicolas Kuhn then twice set up Adam Idah, with the German also finding time to score twice himself.

Contesting their first Champions League game at this stage in their history, Slovan Bratislava were rated 10/1 rank outsiders by the bookies before a ball was kicked. Celtic 's pre-match price of 1/5 odds-on favourites, meanwhile, felt like a bold expression of faith in a team with just one home win in the Champions League in the last 10 years. A side who hadn't won their opening game against the European elite in the last 12 torturous attempts. Turns out there's a reason why the men in camel coats drive bigger cars than everyone else. Like Brendan Rodgers , they just might know what they're doing.

When you break your transfer record once over a summer, it's seen as a statement of intent. If it happens a second time, you mean serious business. With all due respect to the flotsam and jetsam of the Scottish Premiership, Celtic did not lavish £9.5million on Adam Idah and £11m on Arne Engels merely to continue their domination of the domestic game. A radical departure from the kind of transfer tombola the club indulged in 12 months previously, the acquisition of the pair was done to make an appreciable impact on the Champions League .

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers insists he feels more ready than ever before in his two spells in charge to mix it with Europe's elite. The Parkhead side have endured a miserable run of results in the Champions League , winning just 19 of 78 group games and failing to win their opening match in the last 12 attempts. Their last appearance in the knock-out stages was in season 2012-13 and, in the last two seasons, they have finished bottom of their group.

Over these past few weeks, there has been plenty of talk at Celtic about how the club are much stronger this season and in a much better position to make an impact in the Champions League. Buoyed by big-money signings like Adam Idah and Arne Engels, the noise from Parkhead has been resoundingly positive with regards to competing at Europe's top table again. Just last weekend, Brendan Rodgers spoke of the confidence flowing through the squad after reeling off five wins from five at the start of the new Premiership season.

Liam Scales believes Celtic have what it takes to secure a place in the Champions League play-offs. Brendan Rodgers ' side open with a home game against competition new boys Slovan Bratislava on Wednesday night. Having also been handed games against Young Boys, Club Brugge and Dinamo Zagreb, Scales already has his eyes on one of the play-off places guaranteed for teams finishing between ninth and 24th in a new 36-team group - with the winners going into the last 16.

You are the chairman of a Scottish Premiership football club. Presented with a loan proposal from a part-time lower league team for the raw, untried 18-year-old striker banging on the first team door, your choices are as follows. You can: (a) encourage your manager to pursue the player-trading strategy by bleeding young prospects into the team.

For Phillippe Clement, there was an element of risk attached to holding a Q&A session with Rangers supporters at Edmiston House on Tuesday night. Only a week previously, he had become embroiled in a heated exchange with angry fans who had confronted him after Rangers' 3-0 defeat at Celtic Park. Allowing fans an open floor to question the Rangers manager was a fairly bold move after that kind of result and, had the event gone wrong, it would only have fanned the flames.

BRENDAN RODGERS believes Celtic owe it to their supporters to splash the cash before Friday's transfer deadline. The Parkhead club have spent £13million to land Adam Idah, Paulo Bernardo, Kasper Schmeichel and Viljami Sinisalo this summer yet stand to make double that from Matt O'Riley's imminent move to Brighton . While a season-long loan move for Barcelona left-back Alex Valle is in the pipeline, Rodgers - whose side comfortably won 3-0 at St Mirren  - feels he still needs significant reinforcements to get his squad to the required level for the Champions League.

JOHN MCGARRY AT THE SMiSA STADIUM: Celtic are starting games so well this season that they are rendering the final stages of them little more than high-intensity training exercises. This was the fourth time this season that Brendan Rodgers' side had struck twice in the first half and the third straight match in which they'd netted inside the opening five minutes. Just like Kilmarnock and Hibernian, St Mirren found their hopes of taking something from the champions snuffed out before they'd even known what had hit them.

Andy Gould and Chris Docherty at the Scottish FA deserve real credit for the report unveiled in midweek on improving the pathway to the very top for players aged 16 to 21. Not least for making a 114-page offering on such unsexy fare so interesting, illuminating and worthy of ongoing reflection even after moving through the process of challenging your own preconceptions and closing the laptop.

Brendan Rodgers believes Celtic have seven days in which to assemble a squad that won't simply make up the numbers in the Champions League. While the Parkhead club have recruited Kasper Schmeichel and secured the permanent returns of Adam Idah and Paulo Bernardo, the expected influx of quality players capable of challenging for a place in the manager's side has yet to materialise. While Rodgers remains hopeful that situation can change when the transfer window closes at 11pm next Friday, he says he shares supporters' frustrations that more business has not yet been done.

KYOGO FURUHASHI could be set for a stunning move to Manchester City with the Celtic forward high on a shortlist of names to replace Julian Alvarez. The English champions are considering their options after their World Cup-winning Argentinian striker competed his £82million transfer to Atletico Madrid following Liam Delap's switch to Ipswich Town.

Just 12 months ago, after a woeful defeat at Kilmarnock had seen Celtic fall at the first hurdle in the Premier Sports Cup, it was abundantly clear that the spark had already gone from Brendan Rodgers' return to the club. There would be no immediate continuation of the all-conquering Treble-winning machine that Rodgers had built during his first spell in Glasgow. In the inquest which followed, supporters were furious about the style of play and lack of quality signings coming through the door. That mood music would last for much of the season.

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers admits surgery is the only option for Kyogo Furuhashi to overcome the shoulder problem which has hampered his start to the new season. Kyogo was absent from the Celtic side which beat Hibs 3-1 yesterday to progress into the quarter-finals of the Premier Sports Cup, where they will now face Falkirk. The Japanese star has suffered a recurrence of a long-term issue with his shoulder and is continuing to manage the problem on a game-by-game basis.

When Nicolas Kuhn joined Ajax as an 18-year-old, one piece of advice from his coach at the Dutch club's renowned youth academy struck a particular chord. Michael Reiziger, a former Champions League winner who became a mentor for Kuhn, gathered his squad around him to dispense a homespun but impactful pearl of wisdom. 'Michael was a great guy and I remember him speaking to us about our careers that day at Ajax,' recalled the Celtic winger.

What a fortnight it's been in the wonderful world of Scottish football, with the return of league action providing a welcome tonic following a summer of post-Euros discontent. And yet, just as things are getting started, we're taking a break - of sorts - as the Premier Sports Cup takes centre stage. Holders Rangers welcome St Johnstone to Hampden, just days after Dynamo Kyiv put paid to any ambitions of Champions League football for another year. An early cup exit is simply unthinkable.

Adam Idah insists he always had his heart set on a move to Celtic after finally sealing his permanent transfer from Norwich City in a deal worth up to £9.5million. The Republic of Ireland international striker has signed a five-year deal with the Scottish champions after an impressive loan stint during the second half of last season. His arrival followed news that Southampton have all but pulled out of the race to sign midfielder Matt O'Riley, potentially paving the way for a move to Atalanta.

Celtic's lengthy pursuit of Adam Idah this summer underscored a couple of salient points. With the club eventually forced to cough up an initial fee of £8.5million for the striker - a number which could rise by a further million - the advantage of having a pre-agreed figure in a 'loan with an option to buy' arrangement is plain to see. Unlike the deals which saw Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers arrive initially on loan with £6m purchase fees already nailed down, Idah arrived in Glasgow in January purely for a five-month stint.