Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

10 men or not, they managed 1 shot on target in a must win game. Rodgers did not get 'schooled' by anyone and a nervy end to the game when you consider what was at stake for both teams doesn't change that

 

I appreciate that you are taking the time to draw my attention to these things, Dev; but to be fair, mate, I've consistently said from day 1 that Rodgers is a good manager, so it would be very strange of me to simultaneously think he had no good tactics against Rangers. I thought (and still think) that he lost the tactical battle with Clement; that's a totally different thing from thinking that he had no good tactics against him or that none of them worked. He plainly did and they clearly did.

Let me be very clear what I do mean, as I seem to have been misunderstood by quite a few on here, some of them far less polite and reasonable than you (so if I sound annoyed, I am sorry. You can blame them).

1) It is my opinion that we utterly dominated the first half.
2) Nevertheless, Rangers had almost as many good chances as we did in that first half.
3) Given that there chances all came by exploiting an obvious weakness we have, 1 plausible explanation for this is that they created so many chances in spite of being outplayed by clever use of tactics.
4) Although I can't show that this explanation is the right one, it is the one that I believe to be true.

I'm willing to be persuaded that I am wrong about that; but I'm not saying that Rodgers has no good tactics.

 

A bucket load of credit is due to Rodgers this year. We had points this season where things could have spiraled out of control for a less experienced manager and that is where Rodgers pulled it together. When we were threadbare, Rodgers found ways of keeping the points coming in for the most part and it might not have been pretty be he got the job done.

Like other have already stated, the board must must back him with real quality. Let's Rodgers build the best possible Celtic team be can

 

I was delighted with his appointment, his experience and skill has got us to within touching distance of the league and all the money that means. As important is the fact the Huns don’t get the money, to me we should be really strengthening. Offer O’Reily a bumper new deal to try and entice him to stay another season.
The fact not one of the summer signings played on Saturday is so telling.

 

I can’t really see the chances they created they had an xG of .99 and scored one.
We did lose a level of control in the second half, but the domination and chances we created are down to tactics like the above from BR.

To be fair, just tagging you because we were having the discussion, I find stuff like this interesting as * and probably would be sharing it anyway.

 

Hey Liam!

Any chance the next time you are allowed by the opposition to amble forward unchallenged for 40 yards you could find one of your team mates with a pass?

 

I'll need to watch it again, mate (or at least watch the first half again); but I remember at least 2 more chances, 1 of them a really good chance. The part in bold is a very fair point and the best argument I have seen against my point of view; but mate, I can't shake this slight feeling of concern that the sheer level of dominance we had wasn't reflected in the chances both teams had. This wasn't like the previous 3 games (which were actually pretty tight), we battered them; and yet if Lundstrom doesn't go "full Hun", then they are still in the game at half time. Does no one else find that worrying?

Yeah, it is interesting. It's good of you to take the time to do that.

 

You know, that's a * of a point, mate. There was a point just after the break where it felt like the Covid season, it really felt like it had the potential to all fall apart. He managed to hold it together and then turn it around in exactly the kind of situation where we've seen several managers go into a death spiral before*. I never thought of that before.

At least 3 that I can remember: Lenny in the Covid season, Mowbray and Barnes. Of course, I don't mean to imply that Lenny is in the same category of manager as Mowbray, let alone Barnes.

 

We shouldn't have been in a title race with that parcel of * ,sevco totally * themselves against Ross county and Dundee they are a brutal team they had plenty of help from their Masonic pals to prop them up ,we have vastly superior players but you wouldnt have thought so for large periods of the season. we got our * together after the hearts defeat when mcgregor mentioned we had a team meeting to see what was going wrong, almost immediately rodgers tries to absolve himself from blame in the press saying hes not telling the players to pass it backwards .sure enough getting the ball into the box a lot quicker played to our strengths ,the defending hasnt been great ,game management sketchy,not ruthless enough in front of goal ,i dont think we have been anywhere near convincing enough with the players at our disposal .having a slightly better points total that a awful sevco team after wiping the floor with them just shows there is a huge scope for improvement

 

I think you're wrong tbh, just because they generated maybe 2 clear chances by exploiting our weaknesses, doesn't mean Clement got the better of Rodgers or anything like that. We constantly managed to get a midfielder free on the edge of the box for a shot, a tactic which got us a goal and in truth probably should have got us more than 1. The 2 clear chances I talk about was their only clear chances in the whole match.

With better finishing and decisions we'd have been out of sight at various points in the match. Even when we were under pressure near the end, we had 2 goals disallowed (correctly) and Idah missed 2 great chances. I'm not sure how a manager can lose a tactical battle when his tactics should have had us out of sight with some better finishing. Seems ridiculous actually.

 

Also I must say, I loved how dynamic McGregor was. We totally took advantage of the fact Lawrence can't lace his boots physically and he ran off him timeafter time to give us an overload. Looked like his old self.

 

Rodgers got absolutely spanked in the tactical battle is such a mental take RR Guys lost once to them ever..

 

I'm not sure what tactical battle was occuring, seemed to me their strategy was largely to have Silva hoof the ball to our left wing to try and exploit Taylor and Scales on that side without having to go through Maeda or our centre midfield. It was a strategy that made sense give our relative strengths and limitations in various areas of the pitch but hardly anything novel. Other than that they used their physicality, got a straight red and gave away a penalty.

Whatever their strategy was, we dominated them for the vast majority of the game, they got one shot on target while we were still celebrating winning the league, and otherwise never looked close to doing anything.

 

Watching Tottenham Man City. The Belgian * will be rattling the telly right now

Strings man hahaa..

 

He has played the * like a fiddle the last 6 weeks or so. How many made up trophies have they won now according to Clement? Must be on about 4 or 5. Moral victory, done better in the semi final, haven’t lost to Kilmarnock, points won since he took over. I might have missed one there.

 

He hasn't stopped talking about us and trying to justify why they're close to us/how he's improved them..

Rodgers just throws in wee lines about relishing this, coming alive and then ramps it up with having fun with them and no no even watching their game on the box later as he doesn't give a *...despite us possibly winning the league officially because of it. Aahahaaa

He's played him good and proper. With absolute ease

 

I don't know why you feel the need to spoil a perfectly good and well-argued post with that rather unfair last sentence, because what I was arguing might have been wrong; but it certainly wasn't ridiculous. Let's leave aside the 2nd half, given the numerical advantage and look at what I was and wasn't saying about that first half.

What I wasn't saying was that none of Rodgers' tactics worked. Clearly, many of them did, including those that you and Devlin have brought up. What I was saying that the first half was closer (in terms of good chances) than the mismatch in player quality and the domination we had would usually lead you to expect (to me, that seems unarguable, I counted 3 good chances they had). I attributed this difference to the tactical battle, based on the fact that they opened us up in very similar ways each time. Now, I may or may not have been wrong to take this second step (I plan to watch the first half a second time); but it's certainly not a ridiculous explanation.

 

Brendan Rodgers will SNUB the Rangers game against Dundee at Ibrox that could see his Celtic side crowned Scottish Premiership champions.

The Light Blues are in action following their weekend derby defeat to the Hoops at Parkhead and if they slip up against the Dark Blues then it will see Rodgers make a title-winning return north of the border


However, the 51-year-old won’t even tune in to the live Sky Sports action from Govan with Rodgers instead opting to watch the man he replaced in the Celtic hotseat, Ange Postecoglou, try to put a dent in Manchester City’s English Premier League title race. If Rangers do get the victory against the Taysiders then Celtic head down the M77 on Wednesday night to face Kilmarnock at Rugby Park where they will require just a point to win the title - with St Mirren at Parkhead on Saturday the final league game


Asked if he’ll watch Rangers’ clash at home to Dundee, the Irishman said: “No, I’ll watch Tottenham-Man City. And obviously once we’ve finished our work here I’ll watch probably that game. Our only focus is on ourselves and preparing for the game tomorrow and outwith that we can’t control anything else. For me it doesn’t really matter. Some people prefer to win it there then you have the celebration. For me it’s just about collating the points over the season and when it’s mathematically rubber stamped you take take


I said after the game at the weekend that we're nearly there but we have to keep pushing so we recover well from the aftermath of the game at the weekend and our focus is very much on finishing the job as early as we can. Nothing's won. We took a giant step at the weekend and coming away from the game and looking at the actual performance, the guys did incredibly well considering the circumstances in the build up to the game and the closest (title race) for so many years

But it's what they're very good at - they're very grounded and humble. So it was a case of coming back and reviewing the game and then getting prepared for Wednesday night. You do your own preparation because you can't control anything outwith that. Our focus and control is on what we can do against Kilmarnock. The mindset is key. We have three games left and want to perform well so we look to manage the squad and look to be as fit and fresh as we can be.