Brendan Rodgers has jumped to the defence of club record signing Arne Engels after some recent criticism of the Celtic starlet’s performances.
The Scottish Premiership champions splashed out £11million to bring the 21-year-old Belgian to the east end of Glasgow from German outfit Augsburg. Rodgers joked that it was like a holiday camp at his former club because he played fewer games and has jumped into the pressure pot of starring for Celtic in the Champions League.
Rodgers, speaking ahead of Sunday’s trip to Motherwell, said: “There’s critics in the game and people have an opinion and you have to respect that. For me, we’ve brought in a young player who is nowhere near the finished article. Sometimes there’s a press around him and that might feel like you’re buying someone who is the finished article but he’s not.
“He came in here as a 20-year-old player who has a great potential and it’s my job along with the staff to develop that. I said to him he’s coming from playing one game a week, where that’s a holiday in my book, to come and play at a big club with big pressure and big expectations and that he’ll feel it.
“Sometimes he’ll play in a lot of games and sometimes he’ll come out to recover. It’s all natural. We had the same with Nicolas Kuhn and probably with Callum McGregor over many years. It’s football and I understand it. People make a judgement and have an opinion but I’m so happy he chose to come here, he’s shown more than enough in this short period of time that he’s going to be a fantastic player for us.”