It's been a quiet January for Celtic so far, with all their business on the outgoing front – Yosuke Ideguchi has been sent on loan to Vissel Kobe, while Nat Phillips has made an early return to parent club Liverpool to halt what was supposed to be a season-long loan spell. Now, though, as we approach the mid-point of the window, things look set to pick up.
Celtic are said to be on the verge of landing Nicolas Kuhn from Rapid Wien for a fee between £2.5m and £3m, and there may well be more to come after that in the midst of their Scottish Premiership title battle with arch-rivals Rangers. As it stands, Brendan Rodgers' Hoops are eight points clear at the top of the table, but they've played two games more than Philippe Clement's side, so that gap could shrink to two.
Rodgers identifies next two priorities
According to Football Scotland's Mark Hendry, Celtic are still looking at adding a striker and a left-back to their ranks after the deal for Kuhn goes through. They have been offered "lots of players" through agencies, but the scouting team is still conducting its "due diligence", suggesting a second arrival may not be imminent just yet.
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In terms of names, Hendry notes that Celtic made enquiries about Estoril full-back Tiago Araujo back in November, but "it's been crickets" on that front since, with no further developments.
Celtic look to close gaps in their squad
You can certainly understand why Rodgers wants to strengthen in both of these areas. Celtic's joint-top scorer as it stands is a midfielder in Matt Riley on ten goals, as many as primary centre-forward Kyogo Furuhashi has managed in 29 appearances. Back-up option Hyeon-gyu Oh has hardly been prolific either with just five in 24.
As for the left-back position, Rodgers is currently overreliant on Greg Taylor, who's started every single league game, completing the full 90 minutes in 17 of those, and also made the XI for all of their Champions League group stage matches.
If Taylor takes on too great a load, his performance levels could decline and he'll be at greater risk of suffering a costly injury. The manager does also have Alexandro Bernabei at his disposal, but he seems to have little interest in using him – the Argentine has only made the squad seven times, and his four substitute outings amount to a mere 71 minutes.
As for Araujo, it's thought that Celtic's interest "cooled" after they first made contact to gauge the "conditions" of the deal. Estoril are ready to sell him if their £4m asking price is met, with plans already being put in place to ensure they can replace him this month, but the reigning Scottish champions haven't been in touch since the autumn. Maybe Celtic will revisit that deal, having already put in some initial groundwork, but it sounds like they may be harbouring some doubts that could lead them to sign an alternative target to compete with Taylor instead.