It happened in the 87th minute when Paulo Bernardo’s exquisite pass released Adam Idah who took one touch to control the ball before leathering a sweet daisy cutter past Jack Butland in the Rangers goal to make it 3-2 to the champions. It ought to have been the winner but Rangers winger Rabbi Matondo had other ideas and hats off to him for that. The Welshman’s wonder strike is largely why Celtic’s third goal flew under the radar.
It was an excellently crafted and quality goal by two players in the ‘try-before-you-buy’ camp. At this moment in time, Bernardo and Idah are in a kind of Celtic limbo at this juncture in their careers, unlike Portuguese superstar Jota and American international defender Cameron Carter-Vickers who were both recruited on option-to-buy loan deals. It became apparent very early on that Celtic were going to activate their respective clause and sign the players for a significant financial outlay. Celtic have a similar Jota and Carter-Vickers arrangement with Portuguese under-21 and Benfica graduate midfielder Bernardo. There is no such option to buy inserted into Idah’s contract… yet!
However, the duo’s exploits at Ibrox begged the question: ‘Was this a glimpse of Celtic’s future under Brendan Rodgers’? Neither did their chances of earning a long-term deal in Glasgow’s east end any harm. In that instant, the pair strengthened their own playing hands. When Rodgers was asked to single out the excellent contribution of Bernardo and Idah in the aftermath of the thrilling 3-3 draw in Govan, he said: “It was a great pass, a great weight. He can do that in the box can Adam, it was a fantastic finish. It was just unfortunate we could not hang on to it but we were undone at the end by a Kevin De Bruyne goal.”
Let’s take Bernardo first, shall we? It’s been a mixed bag of a campaign or the midfielder thus far. Earlier this month there were rumblings from Portugal stating Celtic are looking to retain the 22-year-old for next season. However Celtic had inserted a but clause of their own. The Scottish champions were trying to renegotiate the fee attached to Bernardo’s option to buy. Currently, the player’s option-to-buy valuation stands at £6.5 million which might prove to be too rich and too steep for Celtic to dive into come May when other pressing areas of the team will need to be strengthened – they need a goalkeeper, centre-back and left-back for a start.
Bernardo has made 27 appearances in all competitions he has scored 4 goals and contributed three assists during his 1,348 minutes of football. Tellingly he featured in all six of Celtic’s Champions League games. It was his defensive qualities displayed against Atletico Madrid in the home clash that particularly caught the eye. Here’s the thing that makes the chances of a deal being concluded even more realistic: Rodgers likes him and rates him. The 51-year-old sees him as a big game player. Matches don’t come much bigger than Rangers and Bernardo has already scored a beauty at Celtic Park against his city rivals and then dug out a superb assist at Ibrox last Sunday.
It is at such moments that contracts can be metaphorically inked. Back in January when Bernardo had hit a purple patch his manager had this to say about him: “I’m delighted with the emergence of Paulo. There is an agreement with the club, an option for us to activate that if we want to do it.
“He came in and gradually he has learnt the principles of our play. Leading into the Rangers game last month I knew he was going to start and we wanted to give him a run of matches. He’s been fantastic. He has got an old head on young shoulders. He’s a top professional. I can see him emerging and growing now as a person, feeling more confident amongst the players. He now has real clarity in how we play and how we work – and you see his game flourishing. He’s been excellent and I expect him to get better. We’ll assess it. I’ll sit down with him at some point towards the end of the season and take it from there. Do we know the fee involved? Yeah. The player would have to agree as well, it’s a two-way situation.
“I can see Paulo is really enjoying his time here. He is improving and developing. Is the fee realistic? I’m not going to say what it is but, absolutely, otherwise it wouldn’t be in place.” It was a ‘watch this space’ update from Rodgers.
As for Idah, the Irishman has featured 11 times for Celtic totalling 560 minutes and has bagged six goals and contributed two assists. The only blot on Idah’s copybook is the vital missed spot-kick in the recent 2-0 defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle. Yet at Ibrox on Sunday, Idah displayed all the attributes that had Rodgers purring with excitement about the Republic of Ireland prodigy’s arrival from Norwich City in January. Back then Rodgers said: “Hopefully, there will come a time here when I can be trusted – and maybe I have an idea of what I’m doing.
“Adam was a player who came to us late. His agent rang me up and said there was a possibility. The agent knew I liked him as a young player. When he was available it excited me. Sometimes a player just needs a change of environment. If I can unlock the talent he has then this is a boy that can be a top-level striker. He’s not just a boy where, even if you max out everything, he can only get to a certain level.
“This is everything – this is 6ft 2in, power, speed. So once he finds the relationships with the other players and the runs – and we’ll play to his strengths because he wants to run in behind – then he’s going to be a real handful. Then working with him on the training pitch and seeing his finishing – left foot, right foot, spin, strike – he was absolutely brilliant.
“Now I see this guy here and he’s got everything. There is something that’s not gone quite right. He’s had a few injuries and sometimes the young guy coming through at his club doesn’t get the chance to stay in the team, especially when you’re down at the bottom of the league and you need experience. He’s come through that – he’s played over 100 odd games and has 25 international caps and sometimes now, by moving away, it can make him feel like he is now ready to perform. Because even if he comes to us and we sign him for two or three years he can still go somewhere else at the age of 25 and still have another ten years.
“Whether he stays here for four months or four years, this period will open his eyes to proper football. It will teach him how to come here, be a winner and improve your game. He wasn’t a ‘last minute’ choice. It was about availability. I only wanted to bring in someone who could excite me and add to this team rather than just a journeyman striker who could come in to be the second choice. I’d rather give that opportunity to our young players.
“In Adam, we’ve got a genuine player and a big, big talent if we can get him to consistently perform. I’m excited about that.”
It’s no hyperbole to see that so far Idah has delivered. It is well documented that Celtic could well have to fork out over £3 million to secure his services from Carrow Road come the end of the campaign. A goal against Rangers at Ibrox would certainly have done nothing to cap his fee at that price. The Celtic support has certainly taken to him.
Idah also has 24 international caps and three goals to his name. Speaking exclusively to The Celtic Way, the manager who handed the attacker his full Ireland debut, Stephen Kenny revealed that Rodgers could turn him into the player that he wants to be and that his former pupil could have a big say in the race for this season’s Scottish Premiership title.
Kenny said “Adam has pace. He is very quick. He has a real physical presence and technically he is very good. He can press aggressively and he can run the channels. He can be a focal point of any team’s attack. He possesses all the right attributes that you need in a modern-day striker.
“Adam is playing at a good level now for both club and country and progressing his career along nicely. I think Brendan Rodgers is an ideal coach for a player like Adam at this time as he is still learning the game. Brendan will help Adam do that and contribute massively to his development. I’m sure Brendan will be working on improving Adam, especially with his movement in the box. He has scored some good goals and important ones for Celtic already. The bar is set extremely high as a centre-forward for Celtic but Adam has gone in and shown that he can score goals at that level.
“It is a very competitive Scottish Premiership this season and it is the tightest race in a while. The title will be won by a minimal amount of points. The league flag will be decided by fine margins and that is why the goals that Adam scores for Celtic will be a major contributory factor come the end of the season.”
Kenny’s not wrong. The race for the chequered flag between Celtic and Rangers is going right down to the wire. You get the feeling that in terms of contractual decisions on Bernardo and Idah, that too will go right down to the wire. Although Bernardo and Idah’s respective cameos during Sunday’s six-goal thriller at Ibrox could well have planted the seed in Rodgers’s mind to ask the question of Benfica and Norwich City as the pair ably demonstrated that they can be relied upon to deliver in the games that matter most. It’s up to Rodgers and the Celtic hierarchy to make the next moves and lift Bernardo and Idah from their limbo status to a state of certitude.
Bernardo and Idah are certainly not job lots. They are too high quality to be classed as that but Celtic are well aware that they don’t want to get involved in any kind of auctions. If Celtic can renegotiate the Bernardo arrangement and pay half of Benfica’s original asking price as well as pick up Idah for £3 million then an outlay of around £6.5 million for the pair would represent superb pieces of business.
Rodgers is no David Dickinson but if he could land both Bernardo and Idah at those kinds of prices then it’s Celtic who should be looking to appear in a summer edition of ‘Dickinson’s Real Deal’
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