Celtic’s January transfer mishap blamed by Alan Shearer as Champions League reality laid bare

Alan Shearer believes a top, quality centre-forward would have seen Celtic beat Bayern Munich and reach the Champions League last-16.

Brendan Rodgers' team went to Bavaria with a 2-1 deficit but had many chances to overturn it. Callum McGregor and Nicolas-Gerrit Kuhn missed excellent opportunities in the first-half, while Daizen Maeda narrowly missed a connecting cross at the back post.

Despite taking the lead in the second half through Kuhn, Celtic's dreams were dashed by a late Alphonso Davies goal, resulting in despair for players and supporters.

Speaking highly of the Scottish Premiership side's performance on the Rest is Football podcast, Shearer said: "It was so cruel. I must admit, before the game, I saw them making it difficult at times, but I did not see them playing as well as they did.

"I tell you what, if they had a finisher up top, they would be in the round of 16 now, there's no doubt about that. They had three or four unbelievable chances in the first 20 or 30 minutes.

"They were knocking it around, every player was comfortable, Brendan Rodgers got his tactics spot on. It was a really, really impressive performance from Celtic. Their movement, everything about them looked really good."

Lineker concurred with his fellow former striker's viewpoint and expressed his sympathy for the disheartened Celtic players post-match. It's unlikely that Rodgers would contradict Shearer, having confessed a desire to bolster his strike force during the January transfer period.

The Bhoys said farewell to goal machine Kyogo Furuhashi as he exited Celtic Park to join Rennes with an impressive tally of 85 goals under his belt for the Celts. While Jota made the switch back to Celtic and Jeffrey Schlupp was signed from Crystal Palace, Rodgers' real wish was to recruit another centre-forward.

As the window closed, Rodgers said: "I said it myself, we wanted another striker, so we're not hiding behind anything. And absolutely, the supporters will look and see that a top striker has gone out, a legendary striker.

"So I understand that. But all I can do is affect what we have now and look to teach and work very hard and finish off what has been, until now, a great season for us."

He added: "I don't want to pin blame on anyone here. I think as a collective, it wasn't ideal how it ended for us.

"We have to, as a club now, go away and look at that, like we do in every window. I'm not going to become frustrated and kill my joy of working here by thinking about what could have been."

Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts