News about Alex Valle

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.

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.

ADD Dortmund to Paris, Barcelona and Madrid on the growing list of Celtic's Champions League crime scenes. Confronted by the yellow wall of the Signal Iduna Park, Scotland's champions crumbled and collapsed under the relentless pressure of last season's beaten finalists. When Spanish referee Jose Maria Sanchez blew the final whistle, it felt like an act of mercy. Brendan Rodgers described this as an acid test for his team and, in the cold light of day, they failed on every conceivable level. Had the old BBC final score vidiprinter still been in use, they'd have repeated the scoreline in words to emphasise just how outclassed Celtic were in every department.

Ready to trade blows at the top table of European football once again, Brendan Rodgers and Celtic have managed to avoid most of the true heavyweights who have too often left them battered and bruised over the years. When the draw was made yesterday for this season's new-look Champions League, there was no Real Madrid or Manchester City for the Scottish champions. Nor was there a Bayern Munich, a Barcelona or a Paris Saint-Germain. In this most unforgiving arena, Celtic dodged pretty much all of the big hitters.

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.