IT is hard to determine what raised most panic among the Celtic support yesterday, the news that their manager Brendan Rodgers may be happy enough to go through the rest of the season with the squad he currently has at his disposal, or the proclamation from Hamilton manager Martin Canning that his team felt they could go to Celtic Park today and get a result.

Oh wait, actually, no it wasn’t. With all due respect to Accies and their boss for their achievements over the last few years, on current form there is more chance of Michael Stewart getting a Christmas card from Craig Levein as there is of Hamilton coming away from the East End today with anything but another huge dent in the goals against column.

The latest comments from Rodgers surrounding the transfer business of his club are not particularly alarming when taken on their own merits. Of course, Celtic supporters may be aghast that their manager would be prepared to take the risk of running the last leg of the most closely contested title race in years without a new right-back in place, given the poor form of Mikael Lustig and with Tony Ralston still learning his trade, let alone try to progress past Valencia in the Europa League. But it may well be that Rodgers is simply playing down his desperation to fill the position.

I’m not a particularly good poker player, but even I know that a manager shouting from the rooftops about how vital it is for his club to sign any sort of player doesn’t put them in a particularly strong negotiating position. So, perhaps Rodgers is simply keeping his cards close to his chest.

On the other hand, the language employed by Rodgers when discussing Celtic’s transfer business this week, and how he has distanced himself from it, may just be causing one or two ripples of concern among supporters. Because no matter how disappointed they may be about not gaining another one or two quality players in this window, the prospect that they might lose their manager in the not so distant future is one that is a great deal more alarming.

Celtic legend Chris Sutton has suggested that the language used by Rodgers around the signing of winger Maryan Shved - where he made it clear that the club had signed the player and not him – hinted that Rodgers may not be around in the summer to rebuild a squad that will be looking a little threadbare as loaned players depart.

Whether there is any substance to that argument, only the Celtic manager knows, but in the here and now it certainly looks from the outside as if Rodgers is giving himself a little wiggle room should the January window not pan out to the satisfaction of supporters.

It was a similar story during the summer, when the whole world could see that Celtic were crying out for a quality centre-half, among other things. By the time Filip Benkovic arrived on loan from Leicester City, the horse had bolted and Celtic had failed to qualify for the Champions League.

Rodgers made it clear back in August that he had presented a list of three priority players to the Celtic board, which were understood at the time to be Odsonne Edouard – the only one who subsequently arrived – John McGinn and Sporting defender Cristiano Piccini. Ironically enough, Piccini will shortly be at Celtic Park as he is now Valencia’s right-back, giving Celtic fans a chance to see what they could have won.

By setting out publicly that he had put forward names that the board then subsequently failed to deliver, the Celtic manager was making it clear to the support where to direct their ire over a poor summer window for the club. And the worry for Celtic fans if Rodgers is preparing the ground in a similar fashion in January, is that this window could be set to end with a whimper as well.