Brendan Rodgers has confirmed he plans to add a striker to his Celtic squad this month with Kyogo Furuhashi set to join Rennes.
The Parkhead boss expects Kyogo will join the Ligue 1 side officially in the next 24 hours as Jota makes the move in the opposite direction.
However, Rodgers is hopeful Celtic will complete more business this month as he admitted he needs another striker with the Japanese forward leaving the club.
Celtic have been planning for the January window and to replace Kyogo after the forward first revealed his desire to explore a transfer exit months ago.
"As I said, it's been in the making for a while," Rodgers explained.
"So there's been a lot of work going on behind the scenes and hopefully, we can get someone to add that strength to our squad."
As it stands, Rodgers would have Adam Idah as his main striker should Kyogo's proposed move materialise, however, Daizen Maeda could be an option centrally.
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The winger has played through the centre on occasion for Celtic and Rodgers would be confident to field him up front again - even if not as a long-term solution.
"He can do that, but I would still want to bring in another striker. I think he can play there," said Rodgers of Maeda's capabilities as an out-and-out striker.
"If you look at Daizen’s numbers, I'm not sure exactly what they are. But when he arrived here, he came in here with something like 23 goals in 30-odd games. So he's a different profile of striker.
"But the two games I've played him in as a striker, he's scored five goals as a striker. At Yokohama, he scored a hat-trick, and then earlier in the season against Hibs when Kyogo didn't play, he scored two goals and was a threat. So he will get goals. What's been really nice is to see the numbers that he's able to get off the side.
"But I still think that we would need another striker in. Definitely we would want to bring in someone else."
