Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

What exactly has happened?

 

@The Prof I just read the interview posted by Henrik 07 and I think it pretty much confirms my impression from the earlier interview.

 

Noone is going to tell me that when Celtic approached him about a return that he and his agents did not include this as part of his negotiations.

For one thing, he was able to make the club agree a 3 year deal when literally every manager since Tommy Burns has worked with a 1 year rolling contract (every single day it is renewed by 1 year). So if he made that stipulation part of his agreeing to come back then considering part of why he departed was supposedly about not backed, then come on...

If anyone really believes his agents didn't make sure for BR having considerable budget/say/autonomy in the transfer dealings, then I have the a bridge to sell.

After all, everyone, including BR, would be aware that Ange - who arrived without staff and as a virtual unknown in this part of the world - was given resources and recruited incredibly well to turn around what was a completely stagnant sh*tshow. Yet BR, coming back after all his previous success and can build and improve on an inherited treble winning team (minus the retirement of Mooy and the sale of Jota and Starfelt) and has so far underwhelmed.

It's early, yes, and injuries haven't helped - noone would've anticipated needing to bring in 3 CBs to replace Starfelt - but what BR is saying is completely disingenious. It gets the fans to blame the board and away from him, when the only person that BR should be telling needs to do better is the reflection in the mirror.

 

I think his frustrations with the window just gone are genuine. Look at that reaction about 2 minutes into the Sky Sports interview. If that's not genuine, then his acting skills have improved a lot.

 

I have to admit that I feel frustrated too. There's no excuse for not signing a LB and GK and arguably a DM. We needed them and we had the money to get them but either refused to do so or failed to do so. Regarding the signings we did make, I get the model and I'm not against it; but it is frustrating in the short term to yet again be in a position of strength and not build on it but instead exit the following window weaker. It feels like a familiar script TBH.

I can feel Rodgers' frustration there.

 

At some point, this model has to start paying dividends. Otherwise, frustration will grow. Between that and the classic matches they've been posting, it feels a bit like jam tomorrow and jam yesterday...

 

This model hasn't and won't pay any dividends on the pitch. It will pay dividends to our board and accounts. Not outside of Scotland anyway.

 

That is exactly what it is. I simply don't believe the words coming out of the man's mouth. Seriously, after all the BS he has shovelled and people have swallowed only to discover the truth and yet people are still willing to believe what he says.

That's not to say I don't think he is upto the job, that his heart isn't in it or whatever else... that's not what I'm getting at here. I believe in the performance and the results and support the team, but that is not the same as believing everything a proven known liar has to say, just because it's convenient.

It's convenient. The financials come out and show a big profit and he is crying poor in light of a bad result. It's what the fans want to hear and it gets them off his back. It's a deflection tactic.

Seriously, we played a team that did not have a striker on the park. Without the lynchpin/focal point that is Gimenez and without his understudy Ueda, Feyenoord were struggling to find a flow and shape much less a cutting edge in that game. Any manager should've looked at that and devised a way to exploit that to our advantage. Not BR though... Go and listen to his re-match comments again before that game, and tell me he is not already... shall we say... 'managing expectations' - he sounds like he is already giving up before the ball has even been kicked.

The same formation without adaptation for the situation.

I get what he says in front of the press and to the fans is not necessarily the same as the message in the dressing room, but surely to f*ck if there was the best opportunity to take on Feyenoord away it was then, and with the entire group stage ahead, to have our side barely lay a glove on them - and that was before we fell apart.

People picking up on hearing his 'frustration' are in an echo chamber of hearing what they want to be hearing, rather than seeing what is the truth. The fans are entitled to their frustration - the fans had no say in who was recruited or how that process took place. Br is the manager and he cannot say the same. The facts are he has not been great with his recruitment - and it was much the same in his first spell also, with the exception of Sinclair and Dembele, and later, Edouard.

Can anyone tell me BR didn't have enough time to assess the squad and tell what was needed? Can anyeone tell me with a straight face that he did not agree to a single one of those signings, or that they were forced upon him? Seriously.

Listern to what he actually says... that he wanted more players in. Not that he wanted more money to spend in bringing better players, that he wanted 'another one or two' players.

It's a show, it's an excuse and it's crocodile tears to deflect from his own fault.

 

Great Post

 

I'm on record as saying that he lies. I know he lies and he has done so since coming back. But what does he have to deflect here? He's not the main force behind our recruitment and nor should he be. Everybody knows that. Even before the window shut, he was publicly asking for "quality".

I know he lies but there's no reason for him to lie here. The recruitment was not primarily his responsibility and he's done alright since he came back given the players available. And there's every reason to think he really is genuinely frustrated, for roughly the same reasons we are.

 

I addressed this in my first post: https://www.talkceltic.net/forums/threads/welcome-home-brendan-rodgers.155730/page-131#post-7527135

There is no way that, after the supposed reasons for his departure the first time around, that it would not have been part of his contract that he would have a considerable amount of say &/or control when it came to budget and transfers.

Considering he was returning after all his previous success and seen that a relative unknown manager being given resources and rebuild what had been a stagnant sh*tshow with the level of control that Ange was able to exert on such matters - and by contrast all BR had to do was build and improve on what was already a treble winning squad - do you really in your heart believe that he - and his agents - would not have included that sort of condition/stipulation about transfers/signings etc into his contract, just as they did when they negotiated the 3 year deal and doing away with the 1 year rolling deal, which has been the norm for 30years?

BR is a smart man. No doubt he is represented by smart men/women and no doubt his lawyers are similiarly smart. They may not all be football people, but BR is and same with the agents are used to negotiating with football people/clubs whatever. That is not something that just gets missed, especially after the way it supposedly devolved thei first time around.

 

There is no chance he would be back without certain guarantees about things he publicly argued with the board with last time around.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have a framework for recruitment, it means we don’t do mental * like quibble over £200k for the guy he considers the main target, to then spend £2.5m on a guy he doesn’t want in Shved.

Annoyingly Shved’s proven since at Shakthar he can do it in the CL and could have been good here but forcing somebody on a manager he doesn’t want or care about, who publicly says he knows * all about him and has enough wingers… * like that, we won’t do anymore or he wouldn’t be here again.

Brendan does lie, he is full of self grandeur, do you think that massive level of self entitlement would return if he thought he was going to be undermined and made to look a fool? He’s not that type of character.

A lot happened last time because of his trust in his mate Congerton, who destroyed a lot of good work that we had built for ten odd year.

Ange done miracles to solve that and bring it up another level, and Mark Lawwel despite nepotism is somebody we wouldn’t be able to get here without his old boy.

He’ll happily use that recruitment, because he’ll get the accolades when it goes well. And he’s not daft, he knows that.

 

He was also dead set on a break from football for a year, and we convinced him. He’d happily have took a break, knowing any job in the Premiership that comes up, him and Potter will be linked as favourites immediately. There is no chance he didn’t make sure he had assurances in place about things he fell out of love with the job and hated the hierarchy above him about.

@Taz the above post about not believing a word, see the story bout the old woman he met, sounded the biggest Brendanism ave ever seen. Then she gave an interview, made me question the Clyde Tunnel story and everything that

 

But all you've said was that he was able to negotiate a 3-year deal and that Ange was given resources and control over transfers and that based on that, anyone who thinks Rodgers doesn't have considerable say when it comes to transfers is, in your opinion, naive to the point of wanting to buy a bridge.

However, from my point of view, I don't see how your conclusion follows from the premises without a number of strong ancillary assumptions that haven't been shown. For example:

1) That Rodgers' bargaining power when it came to contract length was approximately equal to his bargaining power regarding say in the recruitment process. There are reasons to doubt this, given the larger sums of money and higher opportunity costs involved in bad recruitment compared to buying out an extra 2 years of Rodgers' contract and also given Rodgers' recruitment record in the past.

2) That Ange was given any more power than Rodgers was except when it came to signings he knew personally. If you take away Mooy and the Japanese guys, there's actually not much evidence that Ange had more say than any other manager in CCV, Jota, Starfelt, Haksa, Giakoumakis, Abildgard etc. Take away the ones from Japan or Australia and the signings and when they were signed look pretty typical for us, even down to some of them barely playing. To me it looks quite plausible that the only difference between Ange and Rodgers in this regard is that the players Rodger knows personally are all EPL players we can't get.

3) That Rodgers was lying when, shortly after arriving, he talked about understanding that we have a certain recruitment system these days and his role basically just being to give the green light to players identified already and working together to identify new players. Yes, I know he lies; but that's a basis for cautious skepticism not for assuming that he was lying as a necessary part of your chain of reasoning.

 

I think a big part of the reasoning both of use are doing, is assuming what Rodgers would want assurances over recruitment wise.

I think he’d be happy we have an extensive recruitment department he can use, and would be used to working with one as it’s standard in the Premiership that.


My guess is one nitpicking small fees to save a couple hundred thousand and players forced on him he doesn’t want. That’s what he made public as criticism against the board his last stint as manager.

 

But if I understand you correctly, you don't seem to disagree with me about Rodgers not being responsible for this summer's recruitment, so I'm not sure where we disagree. Is it that you think he has been given the players he needed?

 

These days, I'm not necessarily assuming that though, Dev. FWIW I'm actually more of the opinion now (I haven't spelled it out in so many words before as I can't back it up with any particular evidence) that he was happy to work with the recruitment structure but feels frustrated because he had been led to expect that it would do a much better job.

 

Absolutely is responsible, I agree. I think he was given somewhat of what he wanted, think we failed to get that in a few more attempts.

Really, I think we discovered this summer there’s a ceiling to what we can recruit. Even though we have the money to dish out on transfers, those fees will be for players on a wage we just can’t guarantee over five years. Because as soon as we give one promising player, say Tete who we were linked with on £60k at Fenerbache. Then Kyogo needs similar, Calmac needs it, CCV certainly needs it.

Hatate negotiations will now want that….

Judging be some of the more serious links from guys like McGowan who’s usually spot on with us, we tried and failed.


I also think there were areas we need that he just didn’t look at, like LB and a solid Defensive mid. There was one whisper of a rumour between the two with Merlin the LB at Lille I think? Which is 100% down to Rodgers.

Berny having a cracking pre-season, before returning to normal and * Rodgers off with being unprofessional shortly before the window closed, might have * the LB thing.

 

Can I ask why it's 100% down to Rodgers? I don't know this story.

 

Any ‘marquee’ sort of signings (if that’s even a thing in the East End of Glasgow) I can’t see being down to the recruitment department, it’d be somebody Rodgers wants and knows would be worth it for him personally. The recruitment and scouting is more for gems, and in the longer run working with the management to funnel down players the manager can go and run his beady wee eyes over himself to decide.


We had a short time frame to do it this summer I think, Rodgers needed to see the squad and interact to decide what he wanted, would have said yes or no to guys that we were already in the process of recruiting like Holm and Yang, then when guys wanted a move like Starfelt, Nawrocki somebody who Rodgers had looked at already with Leicester we’d go for. Lagerbielke I think was Rodgers as well but can’t make a case for why I think that so wouldn’t argue because I just think so due to the fee.

Our shopping this summer was in a £4m market, previously it was £2m odd. I think we tried and failed for ones we’d need to spend real money on, honestly I think we’re in a new market due to CL money 2 years running, good fees and we ran into our glass ceiling in who we can get due to clubs that can afford high wages in better leagues also being in that market.

And I think that was guys like Livakovic, Tete, Podence… and I’m 100% sure of guys we haven’t heard a whisper of in the media, because there’s ones like that we find out about eventually every season.