Celtic are on the hunt for new arrivals this summer, and Brendan Rodgers has identified Adam Idah as someone he is keen to bring back to Parkhead.
The Republic of Ireland international is now back at Norwich City following his excellent loan spell in Glasgow, where he netted nine times across 19 appearances.
In the aftermath of Idah’s winner against Rangers in the Scottish Cup final, Rodgers confirmed he would like to sign the Cork-born man permanently.
He stated: “He has great movement in the box and he deals with pressure moments. Today, he was like a real number nine sniffing in and around the box. He’s been absolutely immense for us and he’s clearly someone I’d like to do something with.”
Nevertheless, he is set for a frustrating wait as Canaries boss Johannes Hoff Thorup wants to take a look at Idah in pre-season. Regardless, there may still be hope if their sporting director Ben Knapper’s words are anything to go by.
Ben Knapper on Norwich City outgoings this summer
Cited via Pink Un, Knapper has made it clear that Norwich will need to sell players this summer to sustain their self-financing transfer model.
He stated: “There’s always pressure on us here because that’s our model. Whether we have to, or we don’t, we want to and that’s what we define as success as well.
“Of course we always want to build a team that can win games and get promotion, and that’s always going to be the ambition, but as well as doing that in order to be sustainable we have to try.
“So we put pressure on ourselves to do that. Every summer is no different in that respect. That’s kind of where we are and lots of conversations on-going at the minute. But it’s so important that Johannes gets that chance to look at the squad and evaluate as well. And we’ll be speaking continually all the way through the window.”
Norwich hold the cards when it comes to Idah’s future, but they are also aware of their financial reality, which will make it difficult to turn down sizeable bids for key assets.
Celtic will know the English second-tier club isn’t immune to moving players on and may be willing to play the long game. However, with pre-season on the horizon, they can’t wait too long in their hunt for a new frontman.
Hyeongyu Oh looks to be departing this summer amid interest from Genk. This would leave Kyogo Furuhashi as the only striker on the books at Parkhead, a scenario that can’t be allowed to fester for too long in the window.
Time is of the essence for the Bhoys, and hopefully, they can prevail in their pursuit of Idah.