Brendan Fraudgers!

Was anyone wanting him actually sacked? Most people just thought he had questions to answer, which he has done magnificently.

I do tend to ignore hysterical clowns though so you may be right

 

I’m afraid some people did yes.

 

Aye, Steven Gerrard and Dave King

 

I thought most said if he didn't improve the results by Christmas he should leave to save his name. He was outspoken at the start of the season and he gave the impression he didn't want to be here. People wanted him to improve rather than just leave.

 

Some people wanted him to leave. I didn’t say everyone did.

 

Martin canning,

 

Think back to the ronny roar , weve come a long way. Experienced high profile manager reaps the rewards.

 

I have never wanted him to leave, though I did feel a bit of a rift over the summer transfer window which seems to have been sorted. What I will say is January will be a big indicator on whether Brendan will be here next season.

 

Brendan Rodgers has insisted that anyone who thinks his success at Celtic has been easy should try it.


The Celtic manager could equal former Rangers’ manager Walter Smith’s record of seven successive trophies on Sunday afternoon as Celtic face Aberdeen at Hampden.

The former Ibrox boss celebrated that haul between 1992 and 1994, but Rodgers remains unfazed at the prospect of making another little bit of history with the Parkhead side.

He did, however, warn that it has not been as easy as it looks to have bagged an historic double treble with Celtic.


Try it!” he laughed. “Before I arrived here, Celtic had won five titles in a row but my feeling was just to try and do it the best way we could.

“I wanted to make sure the stadium was full, could we develop the club on and off the field? That collective effort has been great. But we want to continue along that way. People in the game know it’s not easy.

“It doesn’t matter if you have the biggest budget or not. The consistency to keep winning, the players have shown incredible appetite to do that.

“I look at Callum McGregor who has played 34 games already this season. To keep performing and winning, with all the physicality they have to put in, is impressive on their part.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Bayern Munich or Manchester City or any other team - they will always have that.

“All you can do is win in the best way you possibly can and build something that allows it to continue.”

The League Cup was the first trophy that Rodgers won in his senior career – and was Celtic’s 100th – but since then he has made a habit of popping the champagne corks.

Levelling with Smith if he successfully claims his seventh straight piece of silverware is something that he will draw quiet satisfaction from without over thinking it.

“It’s very hard for me to look at it in that context,” said Rodgers. ”Walter Smith was a brilliant manager up here and hugely successful. I suppose I have always just tried to look to the next experience, as opposed to from a personal perspective.


Of course, you have something tangible to show for your work. What we have created in the two and a half years so far has been special.

“For me, it’s another great opportunity to experience that winning feeling again.

“When I first came in to the club, I said that our objective was to win and to do it in the best way we can. We have always tried to do that.

“Personally, it has all gone pretty quickly. Two years ago, we won the League Cup Final against Aberdeen which was the club’s 100th trophy in its history and it was great to show it to the fans back at Celtic Park that evening.

“Now, very quickly, we are going for the 106th. We have worked well over these last couple of years but you have to keep looking forward.

“Thankfully the hunger in our training and within our players is still very strong. We want to keep the feeling going.”


















There were an extra few hours in bed on Thursday evening for the Celtic players, something that Brendan Rodgers believes will add a spring to the step of his players when they walk onto the Hampden turf on Sunday.


Having teed up a grand finale to their Europa League campaign with a dominating performance in Trondheim, Celtic will now turn their attention to claiming a seventh straight domestic trophy.

Preparations for the final were underway before a ball was kicked against Rosenborg, with Rodgers making the call to stay an extra day in Norway in order that the player were given ample time for recovery before being asked to go again.

One of the key things is sleep when you are recovering,” explained Rodgers.“If

we’d gone back on Thursday night, it would have been the early hours of Friday morning and the players would then have had to travel back to their homes.

"They might not have got back until about 3am. Then that means you get them in that little bit later on the Friday and there is a tiredness to the day and the work.

“It’s not quite the same, but this way, we have been able to travel home nice and relaxed.

“The players got a nice meal Thursday night, had a lie-in on Friday morning and then met to do some work in the pool or in the gym.

We did it before after we played in Israel in my first season when we stayed overnight in Be’er Sheva.

“You are looking a number of weeks back at the preparation and it’s all about the players. Some staff and people might have wanted to get back earlier, but the game is about footballers and you have to look after them.”

The extra time to kick back after the game rather than the usual harried rush of making it onto the plane may well have allowed Rodgers to ponder over just what his starting XI might be on Sunday.

With Scott Brown and Olivier Ntcham fit and Ryan Christie and Scott Sinclair in form, there are big decisions to be made in terms of team selection.





Brown played for the final 15 minutes of the win over Rosenborg that leaves Celtic requiring only a point from their final Europa League meeting, but it was his first involvement since limping out of the 4-2 win over Hibs back in October.

Eight games have elapsed since then with Celtic hitting something of a purple streak in them; 19 goals scored, just 3 conceded.

“Scott got some game-time and he’s an important player, but we’ll always pick the team to try and win the game,” said Rodgers.

“It’s a busy month for us and a busy period, so he’ll feature at some point.

“It’s good to see him back. He’s an important player for us, but he has a brain. “He’s not silly.

“He knows the team have been playing really, really well and he is ready when he’s asked to play.

“It was nice for him to come in and help us to close out the game against Rosenborg, which he did really well.

“You’ve always got to be honest with the players, of course. We always try to pick a team to win the game and the level of performance from the boys recently has been exceptional and it’s all started from that defensive base and how we press the game; that’s allowed us to create lots of opportunities.

“But it’s great when you have the guys coming back into contention – Scott Brown, obviously, and Olivier Ntcham playing at Hamilton.

“That’s what you want and it’s what we need when we’re playing so many games, that freshness.”


The opening weeks of this campaign were as challenging as anything that has gone before in Rodgers’ time at the club. Having steadied that and returned to the summit of the league table, there is a feeling that Sunday’s game marks the fact that it is business as usual so far as Celtic are concerned.

“Yeah, it’s a good feeling, certainly a lot different to what it was at the beginning when there was a lot going on on and off the pitch,” said the 45-year-old. “But we’ve given stability back to the team again and, step by step and day by day, we’ve got better and better.

“I think we all recognise that, forever how long we are all here, that we want to win as much as we can.

“But not just win but to play in a certain manner which Celtic is synonymous for and the way in which my teams play – an attacking aggressive manner.

“So I don’ think we need to magnify it more than what it is. It’s a final so we want to win it and the players are hungry to win it.

“That’s only a consequence of playing well and willing. My concentration is always on the performance.. There will be some ways in which we can hook the players emotionally to focus. But the concentration is on how we play

 

When did i say i wanted him sacked? That was Padmill

 

I could name names but I’m embarrassed for them..

 

I never said I wanted him sacked.

 

CELTIC lifted the League Cup by beating Aberdeen — and partied long into the night.

Within a week, Brendan Rodgers vowed never again.

The Parkhead players were allowed to celebrate their trophy win in 2016 when they beat the Dons 3-0 in the final.

But in their next game Celts were 2-0 down to Motherwell — with Rodgers ruing his decision to let his stars off the leash.

That’s why they’ll need to wait until the January winter break to celebrate if they beat Aberdeen today.

Rodgers said: “We won’t be celebrating too much anyway, we have the game on the Wednesday.

“Is there a party planned? No, if we win, it’ll be quiet.

“The problem we had the last time was we won the League Cup final then we went a week later and were 2-0 down at half-time against Motherwell and had to come back to win 4-3.

"We had celebrated after that cup final so that told me something.

“No, we’ll get a period in January where we can reflect on everything if we need to and enjoy it if we can.

“We’ll go, we want to win, and then we’ve got a game on Wednesday night.

“I think the boys know me well enough now.

“I treat them like adults, they are not kids with me.

“I treat them as men and we know when those little periods are. When you are playing so many games, your body is so important. You have to look after it.

“But let’s get the job done at the weekend and get another trophy.”

Rodgers has revealed he plans to hold signing talks with a January target on Monday.

That’s where his focus will be when he wakes up in the morning, win or lose against Aberdeen at Hampden.

But asked what winning actually means to him, having had so much domestic success at Celtic, Rodgers explained: “It’s what we’ll be judged on at the end of it.

“But that’s never solely been my own measure.

“It has always been about development of players, development of people, and hopefully creating an environment that allows winning.

“My joy comes from seeing everyone else, it really does.

“I love seeing people happy. And I think it is because I very quickly move on to the next experience.

“I ask people to celebrate success, I want them to enjoy it, but I think sometimes when you are the leader you tend to look for the next experience.

“And very quickly, for some reason, that’s my next thought, you know.

“So I know that after the game on Sunday, I’ll be flying out to speak to a player on Monday, so there won’t be any big celebration whatever it is, or not, whatever way it is.

"We have to get to work the next day.”

Some managers exist on the mantra that winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

But Rodgers added: “Yeah, absolutely. It wouldn’t give me the satisfaction.

“I know from time to time you can win and maybe not play so well. I get that.

“But over the course of time — and I’ve been coaching over 20-odd years now — I take greater joy in seeing football and the level that we play.

“And the consequence of that is winning. But it wouldn’t fulfil me, it just wouldn’t, to just be about winning.

“I recognised that when I first went in to management.

“In my first job, I remember we got a fantastic result against Roberto Martinez’s Swansea. I think they were playing really well at the time, they had beaten Fulham in the FA Cup.

“Then we were playing them in midweek. We won 2-0 at Vicarage, and everyone was on a high after the game — Malky, Dychey, Warbs was there, Frank Lampard senior, all on such a high.

“And I was flat because, yes we won the game, but it wasn’t how I wanted us to win.

“That told me really early on in my career as a manager that it was always going to be more than just winning.

“It got performance of the week, but, nah, I like my teams to win with a certain identity, while knowing that you can’t do it all the time.

“There have been games we have had to dig it out, tough it out, so I get all that.

“I like my teams to play with a certain idea. That’s what drew me to coaching and that for me is what coaching is: that relationship between the training and the game.

"And if you can get that fusion, that’s what makes me happy.”

Celtic are guaranteed to get a tough game against Aberdeen with Derek McInnes someone Rodgers admires in the game.

He added: “I really like him as a guy. I have never been out with him socially but we have spoken after games and we have communicated a lot.

“Obviously from the Liverpool time, I gave him Wardy and I knew how much Danny enjoyed it.

“We speak on the phone and I see his work. He is really professional in his work, you can see he is not someone who is in in the morning and then away at 12.30pm.

“He is diligent, he has a strategy for his club and for his team. No matter the situation they are always very difficult to play against.

“So I have a big admiration for him, I like him. He works very well and develops players also by giving them the right environment and he knows football inside out.”

 

Holding signing talks on Monday with a signing target! Let’s hope he doesn’t invite him for breakfast at his house that worked well last December.....

 

Love him.

 

I didn't realise Walter Smith had won seven trophies in a row between 92-94. C'mon Brendan, take that * record away from him. Wipe the slate clean on the 1990s. In tae them.

 

Financially doped up to their eyeballs.