Brendan Rodgers sees Celtic 'million wingers' conundrum come true again but there's one reason it's no problem this time

It was the line that sent a shudder up the spines of Celtic fans and should have removed some of the element of surprise that followed a few weeks later.

Brendan Rodgers' infamous quote, “We’ve got a million wingers, we don’t need another one” had jaws on the floor in the Parkhead press room back in January 2019 after youngster Marian Shved checked in. Little over a fortnight later chins were hitting the deck again when Rodgers departed for Leicester City, but let’s not go over that old ground for the millionth time. That’s all water under the bridge now Rodgers is back. But it is pretty funny that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The returning gaffer had a look under the bonnet before he came back last week and he liked what he saw when it came to the set up behind the scenes at Celtic. He’s far more comfortable with the recruitment side of things than he was towards the end of his first reign and content to give the green light on some of the signings that were already in the pipeline.

Norwegian Odin Thiago Holm looks a top prospect and the Hoops seem to have done well to nab him. But – just like the winter of 2019 – it also appears Rodgers has about a million wingers again. Aussie kid Marco Tilio is set to be the next in the door and he’s another one who has been tipped to have a big future.

With five caps for the Socceroos in his hipper, he shouldn’t be too far off now. It doesn’t dodge the fact though that the manager has a fair chunk of wide men to choose from. Back in the first spell, the problem wasn’t the number of wingers actually. It was too many of them just didn’t cut it.

Scott Sinclair and James Forrest were the main men, Jonny Hayes always did the business while Lewis Morgan flitted