Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

There’s a fair bit of revisionism when it comes to Ange. You would think we were turning up and completely destroying every team domestically, we didn’t. In his second season there were a fair amount of games where we struggled and won late on. If we were doing that just now, Rodgers would be getting pelters from some.

 

He's said Taylor was straight up the tunnel to get treatment and he's spoken to him since and he's absolutely fine. It was an absolute non issue from the start

 

A non issue that Rodgers could have put to bed straight away but no his ego got in the way. Maybe some fans are spoilt but after the huns game he must of known there would be disappointment in the support if we didn’t come out flying on Sunday. I know he’s not arsed but a lot of people don’t like him at all not just because he left halfway through a season but the fact he’s been outed as liar on a few occasions. So anything he does will always be blown up.
I’m glad he’s the manager of Celtic and he’s doing a cracking job but I won’t be told anything of ‘respect’ by him.

 

"There's only one Edson Braafheid!"

 

100% agree, and my first post comes across a bit cheeky when it wasn't supposed to lol. I don't agree with anything he's said, but you criticise and move on as a support. Celtic are in an amazing place the now so we shouldn't dwell on the Brodge talking *.

Just to point out as well, i think Taylor has been rank rotten this season and for a guy to be in the huff when he gets paid a small fortune every week to kick a ball about a park, i think is a bit childish

 

Aye can’t argue with any of that mate.

Hopefully a good performance tonight with no back passes

 

I genuinely hope we are playing well enough and with the minimum back or sideways passes to ensure that we don't need to have a wee moan or groan as, after all, we don't want to upset any of our delicate sensitive wee flowers who are getting paid thousands for doing a job we'd all love to do

 

someone mentioned earlier that he was probably just * off that they werent singing his name , i could go along with that thinking .it reminded me of rodgers interupting luis palmas interview in pre season calling him the superstar .desperate for attention

 

His point about the fans moaning at the slow build up in 0-0 games is fair enough. The Kieran Tierney song stuff is a non story. He’s made it into a big issue and the media have jumped all over it as expected. He’s not daft so why he chose to do this when he knew it would cause friction is anyone’s guess. I have a genuine dislike for the man but as long as he brings success to us then that’s all that matters.

 

Telling Celtic fans its disrespectful to sing songs about ex players is like telling Irish people they should not sing rebel songs.
And we all know how that panned out.
He has done well to achieve what he has achieved with us, cant argue with the trophy's he has landed over 2 terms-and now progress in Europe.
But he seems to think he is above criticism-when your team turn in a performance like Ibrox, he is going to get it, both barrels. Is just the way it is in Glasgow and he knows that. Head down and continue to pick up points and it will smooth over.

 

What you seem to forget is Ange inherited a team 25 points behind Rangers, in one season he turned it around, rebuilt and won a double, of course over both seasons everything wasn't perfect, because he was rebuilding.
Rodgers however inherited a treble winning side who he sucked the life out of, playing tippy tappy football, last season Rangers collapsed twice, first under Beale, then Clement, that won't happen every season. Let's not rewrite history making Rodgers some type of elite coach, he certainly isn't! He is doing well in a shocking SPL.

 

Day 4 the meltdown continues.... we usually saying this about the huns, let it go ffs. Despite whatever some of ye feel about him he's a * great manager and one of the very best we could attract to Celtic.

 

Under Ange though you always felt we'd score goals.

We used to set up like 3 minimum tap in chances per game sometimes 4/5/6 and then that was on top of anything else that happened. The style of play worked really well and you never really thought about how we will score you just knew chances would happen.Theres be tap ins for anyone as well, mostly the striker but either winger or sometimes Hatate/O'Riley/Mooy/Rogic.

Now going into games I feel like we score a lot of scrappy or unpredictable goals. So as a fan you are never sure how or if we will get any chances.

Kuhn for me is actually the only reliable player in the team, I always think Kuhn might create a goal for himself by cutting in or he might set up a chance.

Maeda though, I never really expect anything, he rarely cuts in to shoot, sometimes he has games or runs of games he runs the ball out or balloons the 1/2 crosses he tries into the stand. For me he scores unexpected type goals, like we might cross a ball in that deflects off someone and he pounces on and scores, or he does score a decent amount of headers, he kind of poaches goals for me and not really through chances we create just any random events.

Our midfield also, McGregors got 6 from outside the box, Hatate, McCowan, Engels and Bernardo between them from open play have about 15 goals but again it's all random, theres nobody who is a constant goal threat maybe except McCowan but he plays the least. But theres no-one in midfield you think "im surprised he's only scored 4 goals he's in the box in good areas all the time" or anything, nobody really does that.

Idah and Kyogo they have about 20 goals between them I think in about 35 games, they don't really get many chances. You don't think of them and go "Kyogo should have 20 goals already this season he's had a shocker" or same with Idah, theres little service to them.

The current style is working well in that goals are spread around but I think we need another wide player and a number 10 type so we have more scoring options just so we have 4/5 people who might score regularly instead of 2/3 and also if Maeda or Kuhn or both are injured theres other guys to play.

I never really trust us to score when im watching games just cause I don't see how goals will come. It feels like only after we score the opening goal do we become settled and more creative because we have a cushion.

Under Ange when watching you'd usually see that right-back or left-back or both are getting tortued and it's a matter of time until we get in behind cut it across and tap it in. Now you wait thinking, hopefully we score from this corner to get us off the mark or one of these crosses or balls in lands at someone.

We essentially now for me hold the ball around an oppositions box long enough that something will happen at some point.

 

Problem is some fans won't let it go

They'll be sat waiting for something to go wrong

 

Firstly, I absolutely loved what Ange did and fully appreciate the size of the task he took on, players he brought in season 1 and squad rebuilding job he did at the cost of about £5m net (including signing CCV and Jota permanently at the end of the year). It was sensational.

The start of season 2 Ange was accustom to this season for me, we blew everyone away easily except a poor game at St Mirren, were in the league cup final, as due to the World Cup in November - December we hadn’t played that yet and were back in the CL for the first time in ages. However, much like the run we had late November and early December where we were still winning but not as convincing as earlier in the season we had slipped into that too then with late goals getting us over the line. The break actually came at the right time for us and that World Cup break probably helped our season.

When we lost Hatate to a hamstring injury in March we basically limped through games to the end of the season and never looked nearly as fluid as we had earlier in the season. This had combined with Mooy’s back issues so he was no longer playing and an out of sorts O’Riley playing.

I loved Ange’s time but teams had started setting up deeper, blocking the near post for cut backs and what had worked previously wasn’t as effective. Whether he would have tweaked things or not I don’t know but I don’t think keeping Ange would have guaranteed the same style we got previously.

The one thing that I am majorly thankful for is Ange season one recruitment as it has helped transform our club. Ange signed

Jota
O’Riley
Juranovic
Giakoumakis
Abada

Costing about £17m and they have brought in around £62m in sales.

He even brought in

Haksabanovic
Ideguchi
Iwata
Bernabei
Oh

Who cost around £9.5m and we have managed to move on for £11m.

Thats before you consider guys like

CCV
Johnston
Hatate
Maeda
Kyogo

Who cost a combined £17m and if we sold them all would likely bring in £45-50m. Combine that with managing to win the league that first year up against it and secure the guaranteed CL Group stage and doing so again in year 2.

So I think Ange made a tremendous contribution but I am not convinced we wouldn’t have run into challenges with opposition changing tactics to dampen our attacking output. The biggest factor in this for me isn’t playing style it’s recruitment being a bin fire for late Ange and Rodgers first window in particular.

 

To be fair, I think it's Brendan that needs to let it go!

 

For me it’s about making sure we complete the job here in Europe and continue to hammer home the advantage in the league.

I agree that I think a lot is being made out of our form downturn whilst we have still found a way to win. We have scored at a rate of 2.2 goals a game and conceded just 0.35 per game with most goals coming in two games against Aberdeen and Rangers.

That performance at Ibrox was abysmal and likely won’t be fully forgiven until we put it right the next time we play them. One thing I will say is if we fail to beat YB though I think it puts a downer on the Euro campaign and I am nervous about that.

Hopefully we put a strong performance in tonight and get some positivity going again, as that silly post St Mirren interview didn’t do us any favours.

Reflecting on the post above about Ange’s tenure, it does feel like we could be heading into a bit of a rebuild by the summer, just given where the squad is and length of time some players have been there combined with interest in the likes of Kuhn potentially being on the horizon particularly if he keeps playing as he is. The positive is if we are doing our recruitment work in the background we have a sizeable funding pot this time to do any squad turnover we need.

 

The last 6-8 games under Ange though I felt the players just took their foot off the gas, we had won the League and only had Inverness in the final. Plus he played rotated teams, I never really took it serious.

From like October 2021-April 2023 we steamrolled teams with ease and went into every game pretty much knowing we'd win and create and score for fun.

Look at March onward where you said Hatate was injured, O'Riley was out of form and Mooy had issues..



Thats top form type results and thats what you remember as a bad patch. That would even be considered a tough spell of fixtures as well yet the was no chance of losing a single game.

 

Absolute bollocks all the conspiracies after a couple of grumpy pressers.

Some here still want him gone due to misplaced idea that he left us as a traitor rather than being effectively forced out when not being supported and bypassed on recruitment - so will jump on anything regardless of how well he is doing.

A bit of mild criticism of our snowflake fans is making us all feel a wee bit sad, awe. Get a feckin grip.

What could eventually force him out is our fans being arseholes about this whole thing and starting to increasingly criticise both him and the team for absolute trivia like this.

We have an elite manager, playing great football as well as an ever improving team.
Get behind him ffs - we will wait a very long time for someone anywhere near as good.