SHOCKING NEWS;Celtic Loses a key player to the transfer window due to..

Brendan Rodgers expects Paulo Bernardo’s return to Celtic on a permanent deal to be finalised imminently.

The 22-year-old Portuguese midfielder made 33 appearances for the Hoops during a fruitful spell on loan from Benfica last term.

Rodgers revealed the nuts and bolts are all in place for Bernardo to return after Celtic agreed a transfer fee with the Lisbon club.

“Hopefully it’s a matter of hours,” the manager told Sky Sports on Wednesday. “He’s due to have a medical so hopefully all being well with that…”

Rodgers remained tight-lipped, however, on the prospect of another of last term’s loan stars, Norwich forward Adam Idah, returning to Parkhead for 2024-25.

“Adam’s a Norwich player,” he said. “He obviously did fantastically with us last season and we’ll just see what happens over the coming weeks.”

Matt O’Riley’s future has been the subject of uncertainty this summer, with Atalanta recently failing in a bid to sign the Denmark midfielder, but Rodgers said no club have come close to reaching Celtic’s valuation of one of their main assets.

“It’s actually been straightforward with Matt because he’s such a great professional,” Rodgers said. “I think always the challenge for teams coming to a club like Celtic (with an offer for a player) is that they can sometimes place a value on the league and not the player.

“We all understand the model here, players will come in and develop. It’s not a club you have to move on from, but obviously there’s riches in other leagues much greater than ours that allows players to go and improve their conditions for their lives, so we all understand that.

“But I think it’s really important from my perspective that if a player does leave here that they pay the value for the player, and that’s something that doesn’t always happen.