Brendan Rodgers believes Celtic secured a "great deal" with the purchase of Adam Idah as he thanked the board for showing faith in his call.
The Republic of Ireland international has re-joined Celtic from Norwich for a fee reported to be worth £8.5million with the potential to rise by £1million more, after hitting nine goals in 19 matches on loan including a Scottish Gas Scottish Cup final winner.
The figure puts Idah's transfer in a similar bracket to the club-record fee paid for Odsonne Edouard in 2018 during Rodgers' first spell in charge.
Many Celtic fans had been concerned over the club's summer transfer business, which has now seen them replace Joe Hart with Kasper Schmeichel and bring back Idah and Paulo Bernardo following loan spells.
But questions have now been raised over the fee paid to the Canaries.
Rodgers said: "You can never win, can you? I mean, 'you don't spend money', you do spend money, 'you spend too much'?
"We've got a great deal. I know the player that we have here and for me it's just a case of just getting him moving in the direction that I believe he can move in. He has all the talent, he's 6ft 3in, quick, strong, his touch is good, he can score goals and he has big moments in big games.
"For me there's still areas that he can improve on, of course and as a young player that's what you'd expect, but I really think that whatever money we paid for him, he's worth every single penny of it. And he'll demonstrate in the next 24 months that he will be worth a lot more than that.
"I wanted to do everything I could and I thank the board for reaching out and getting Adam here because I think he can really flourish."
Rodgers had stressed the need for quality over quantity after returning to Celtic last summer while recruitment plans were in place that saw eight players arrive. None of them started in the cup final or in the opening two matches of this season.
"It's just the attitude to risk," Rodgers said. "You can sign a player for one, two million pounds, fine. And you might sell them for £10million. But you can sign a player for seven or eight, maybe sell them for 30 to 40.
"It's the same thing but it's really trusting the process and trusting a team of people that can work very, very hard and then allowing you to get the players in.
"For example, if you spend £18million and you spend it on nine players, I would hope there's a possibility to spend £18million on three players."
Meanwhile, Rodgers claimed his club had no option but to shut out Rangers fans after their rivals failed to keep their side of the bargain.
There will again be no away supporters at Celtic Park on 1 September and for Rangers' home match on 2 January despite an agreement, brokered in talks with the Scottish Professional Football League in March, for visiting allocations of about five per cent.
Fresh talks between both clubs and the SPFL reaffirmed that commitment beyond those two matches but Rangers had previously claimed they were "taking all steps towards fulfilling that agreement" before New Year.
However, with Philippe Clement’s team playing at Hampden Park amid ongoing delays to renovations of the Copland Road stand at Ibrox, Celtic were unconvinced that the Broomloan end would be ready to accommodate their fans in January and decided not to offer Rangers tickets for their home match.
Rodgers declared he was "disappointed for both sets of fans" and added: "Listen, it’s not complicated. I believe there was an agreement in place to carry out works to ensure that it’s in place for both sets of supporters to come.
"Celtic have been working on that for a number of months. I know that and I know the work that has gone into it and the investment to ensure that everything was right for this fixture.
"But you can only do that if the agreement is upheld with both. So if we can’t guarantee that, then sadly we aren’t able to open the gates for the away support for this one."
Disagreements over away allocations surfaced in 2018 when Rangers tore up the long-standing convention that saw about 7,500 fans travel across the city on derby days and reduced that figure to around 10 per cent of that total. Inevitably, Celtic followed suit.
The situation developed that neither club accepted tickets for each other’s grounds for safety reasons and the SPFL became involved after Celtic refused Rangers’ allocation request for the 30 December game last year.
When asked if Celtic could have taken it in good faith that Rangers would do the required safety work by the end of the year, Rodgers said: "I think the board have made a really, really good decision. The club’s job is to protect the support and if there’s not that guarantee that come the second fixture then…. I think it’s really logical that you wouldn’t reciprocate.
"So Celtic have played their part in what they were asked to do. And again, I go back, nothing of this was Celtic’s issue. Nothing. When you go back to when this all started, it’s nothing to do with Celtic.
"Celtic gets dragged into this as being a Celtic-Rangers thing. It’s not a Celtic-Rangers thing. This is a Rangers thing.
"So Celtic, when even they’re asked to have this agreement to make the stadium safe and everything else, we plough money into that, we do the works, which started months ago.
"And on both parties, it hasn’t been agreed. So it’s not complicated. It hasn’t been done.
"It’s not great faith if we allow Rangers supporters in and then we get to January and our own supporters can’t get in. It’s not good faith. The agreement hasn’t been upheld. So Celtic rightly have to defend their supporters and their club.
"And sadly, as I said, the Rangers supporters miss out on this game and Celtic in the return game. But let’s hope that after that we can then find a way to get the supporters in."
"Celtic gets dragged into this as being a Celtic-Rangers thing. It's not a Celtic-Rangers thing. This is a Rangers thing"
The SPFL earlier confirmed an agreement remained for ticket allocations of about five per cent following the first two derbies "subject to all necessary requirements being satisfied at both Ibrox and Celtic Park".
An SPFL spokesperson added: "The presence of away fans is a vital ingredient of the passion, drama and excitement that is the hallmark of the William Hill Premiership.
"We are pleased that Rangers and Celtic are committed to achieving the return of away supporters to their derby matches as soon as possible."
Clement later said: "I am not involved in these talks but I hope for football games always that there are two sets of fans."
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