He could not have been more unequivocal in the post-match presser last night.
This was no fit of pique.
He was sending a message to the Grey Brigade in the Board Room:
January isn’t for projects.
Consequently, the leadership of Managed Decline FC have a choice to make.
The always perceptive Alan Morrison of Celtic By Numbers and the Huddle Breakdown podcast sent me this WhatsApp last night, and I publish it here with his permission:
“It’s like Ancelotti being asked to manage Rotherham United. Yang tonight was like a kid making up the numbers. This all happened very quickly.”
Back in 2019, things also happened very quickly.
In the January of that year, Rodgers said the following about the acquisition of Maryan Shved:
“The club have been in contact with Maryan’s representatives and he’s a talented young player for the future.
“They’ll look to get the deal done and he’ll probably be out on loan and come into the club in the summer. I haven’t seen a great deal of him. It’s something that’s come to the club through circumstance and he’s been watched and looked at, but I can’t say I know a great deal about him.
“But what I have seen he’s a talent and someone who will probably benefit the club in the future. We’ve got about a million wingers and don’t need another one but he’s a talent and in the summer we’ll probably lose wingers and he’ll look to come in. It’s an opportunity for the club to sign a young, talented player but not one that will probably help us now.”
That was January 2019.
He was gone weeks later.
It was clear that the Ukrainian was not a player that Rodgers had sourced or, indeed, wanted.
The thing is, the Irishman doesn’t need the work in the way that most people need employment.
He’s independently wealthy and if people break their word to him, well, he can Do Walking Away.
Are we watching a repeat of an old movie?
January will provide the answer to that one.
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If the standard of football doesn’t improve, there will be lots of fans wishing they were in the GB so they could also get banned and have their ticket removed.
It will always be the same because of the league we are in. Unless we can join a league in England and work our way up. Celtic FC should have bought over an English lower league team and played their way up and eventually change the name to Celtic but of course that would cost money. If this board has no ambitions to take this club forward then they should step aside and let the right people in that will do exactly that. The definition of insanity comes to mind and will do so for many many years as it suits the money men because money is their only ambition.
He took the job.
He’s never looked happy.
Instead of undermining the Board in press conferences, he should be dealing with these issues behind closed doors which is the appropriate way to do business. Whether he’s right or wrong [he’s probably right] he should be tackling this in his office with appropriate members of the board and not in front of the international press. Amateur.
Whining in public will not win the support over. He left a big smelly poop on our doorstep when he scuttled off to Leicester. Now he’s back and repeating the same old song.
You took the job Brendan. Now get on with it. You need to up YOUR game before implicitely criticising your dressing room.
Am I alone in thinking he wants out?
I think it is pretty much unanimous among the fans that we need to improve the quality in several areas of the park. However, I also think that the manager needs to look at himself and his tactics. He’s now managed 23 European Group Stage games in his career and his record is abysmal. Won. 2. Drawn 6. Lost 15.
A total of 12 points from a possible 69!!
That’s not all down to a lack of quality players. At Liverpool he had a squad that went within a midge’s ball hair of winning the EPL, but they performed woefully in Europe.
Since the departure of Gordon Strachan, only Neil Lennon has given us anything to cheer about in Europe.
€83,000,000 in cash in the bank, not assets or receivables CASH
We will add more this season so €100,000, 000 in cash is a very conservative estimate. With interest rates as they are and inflation as it is this is not good business. The board is not really good business men.
It’s a complicated one without the simple answers we all hope for. We definitely need to recruit in January and I wouldn’t be surprised if we completely changed formation once that happens (IF that happens). If Kyogo wasn’t so talismanic or we had a more BR style striker he wouldn’t be playing, or would be shifted wide. He is absolutely not suited to the style BR wants us playing. So we either change style or change striker. He will be away in January at the Asian cup, so I think we can all guess which it will be.
We will know a lot by March. Whether it’s been a mistake getting Rodgers back, whether the board are as useless as we fear, whether we have ambition. I don’t see Brendan staying into next season if this window goes badly. And this time I don’t blame him.
I didn’t blame him for going the last time. It was the same scenario. It was the manner of his departure that pissed me off. Non disclosure agreement or not, the fans deserved an explanation. And trust me on this, if they had been tying his hands they would NEVER have taken him to court over speaking out. The last thing that they would have wanted was their duplicity being aired in public for all to see.
There was not a Rodgers’ signing in the team he put out in Rome and that suggests he was sending a message to the board. His remarks later emphasised that message and possibly suggested he would have no hesitation in making another exit. His record in Europe is not great and won’t get any better the way things are going right now. And they certainly won’t open any top flight doors for him, which is surely what he wants.
Although we’re suffering big time with injuries, that is two games with one penalty goal and not many shots on target. One game was against a very,very ordinary Motherwell team, the other against a fair but not great Lazio team.
Too many square or back passes , not enough movement off the ball, BR and the Board have to get their act together. The honeymoon 2nd time around for BR is over, From this Sunday the Manager,Coaching staff, Players and Board have to step up to the plate.
Celtics’ reputation in Europe is shot to pieces, the fightback starts here, get the league wrapped up as quickly as possible, then go into the restructured Champions League next season with a few more time served players on board and start the campaign to restore some of our reputation in Europe.
The past few years have been embarrassing on the European stage.
How can Celtic ever be a force if they sell as soon as they become coherent? It seems like they are running their company the way they want it, profitably and with minimum risk to themselves and their profits, a steady stream, year in tear out, with no real risk, why fix what’s not broken may well be their thinking and model.
Couldn’t agree more, surprised more don’t seem to see this.
So bored with our gawd awful style of football at the moment, hope it changes or else we will be looking up the league in a short while.
Ive said it all along its time for change behind the scenes were in a utter shambles off the park never mind on the park got to try KTF
Decline FC sums them up perfectly.
If we had two or three decent experienced players we might be sitting on 6 points. On the domestic front probably 11 points clear in the league. I said to friends in March we needed 6 players we never got them. Palma the only one who looks anything near. I’ve been watching Celtic live since 1967 and season ticket holder since 1994/95.
In my humble opinion the team that started last night was a wrong 11. I would have had Johnstone on from start not forrest. Also Philips for scales in middle . And scales at left back for Taylor who is mince . But we have definatly had no luck in this champions league . Injury.s and suspentions have cost us . And a few lucky goals as well. But we are at least 4 good big strong experienced players short .
I hope we get at least 3 in January.
I’ve been saying for a long time, “If you don’t shoot you don’t score.”
Our inability or unwillingness to shoot from outside the box is killing us. We want to pass teams to death with slow ponderous passing. This allows teams time to get players behind the ball and setup. We don’t have a target man to toss the ball in to.
Unless we are willing to gamble and shoot from distance we will struggle. That thraat draws defenders out allowing a pass to be slipped or a deflection may end up at one of our forward’s feet.
Look at the first goal we conceded last night as an example of what can happen if you take a shot from the edge of the box.
Regardless of that we are physically weak at this level . We have too many players easily brushed off the ball.
To be fair to Nicholson, when Ange asked, he delivered. Could it be that, yet again, Lawwell Sir is sticking his one in where it’s neither wanted, or needed??
You have that spot on Steven.
As I’ve said before, I somewhat doubt the overall narrative that the club has been refusing to buy players in the £5-9m price range, on the basis that they have done so often and willingly in recent seasons (Edouard, Julien, Ajeti, Barkas, Jota, CCV), and it would strike me as strange in the extreme for them to stop doing so having secured the services of their preferred manager and agreed to pay him more, personally, than any predecessor.
My suspicion is that it’s more likely that players in that range have been approached and have turned us down (which MIGHT nevertheless shed light on the strength of our overall recruitment setup).
But, clearly, I don’t KNOW one way or another. If the narrative laid out here is in fact the case, then the manager absolutely should leave the club.
Players in the £5-6m price bracket like the ones you’ve mentioned, jumped at the chance to come to Celtic because they were pretty much guaranteed CL football. Players in that price bracket I suspect would still jump at that chance, IF the chance was there. The problem is, players in that price bracket are rarely good enough for CL football, any more than the “project players” we continue to sign. Even now all I see us being linked with are “promising” youngsters.
EVERY young player is desperate for a chance to play in the CL and that makes them fairly easy pickings. We might continue to be successful domestically and financially with this strategy, but we’ll also continue to be whipping boys in Europe!!
Perhaps. I’m not on speaking terms with players in that price bracket, so I don’t know. It’s players in that bracket which we failed to sign this summer. The question is whether we tried and were turned down (by the specific players we targeted and approached) or whether the club deliberately didn’t try (in the thesis of deliberate decline etc.). I don’t know which is the case. The former strikes me as more logical (given how often we’ve signed players in that range), but if it’s the latter, and the manager has been lied to, he should leave the club. That’s not acceptable. I’d doubt that is the case, but if it is, he shouldn’t tolerate that.
I watch every Celtic game from my home in Thailand. To be honest, they’re boring. Trying to break down teams who have them sussed out long ago. Passing slowly from wing to wing with little penetration drives me nuts. Fair enough, there are a few out with injuries just now, but with the massive resources Celtic have, that shouldn’t be a problem. Taylor drives me to distraction, his passing is always wayward and seldom forward. He is forever looking for a body to pass back to. Letting Giokoumakis was a big mistake as Oh is taking longer to bed in than I’d have imagined.
Rodgers is looking weary, it’s up to the fans to ensure he gets what he wants in January.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Brendan upsticks , because of lack of investment in proven player’s, last time around he wanted two players of quality who did we get Greg Taylor can’t defend his passing is not that good. Always going on about strength in depth not from where I’m looking.
Well Rodgers knew what he was coming into when he accepted the job.Time he started earning his 60k a week wages,as we are going backwards with his style of football,which seems to be possession based with little end product.
Sick to death of champions league. All it does is allow Lawwell and Co to put a pile if money in the bank and keep the share price high. 1 or 2m projects embarrasses us at this level.