Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

Yip. Of course there are exceptions and examples of cheap players being good and expensive ones flopping, but if you are signing players for a couple of million or less, what are we honestly expecting?

 

Following on from my earlier post, he definitely sets us up well in Europe and the possession based football allows us to compete for large parts of the game. Sadly we don’t have the quality to convert enough of the chances we create and we lack real physicality and energy when it comes to defending as a unit / coping with teams who are quick in transition.

I do believe we could improve results if he gets backed in the next two windows. Success being a couple of group stage wins and a prolonged run in the Europa League post Xmas.

However, he does need to consider adapting his style for domestic football, we need to be much more gung-ho again. Ange’s style simply suffocated and overwhelmed teams. Although we did play out from the back, the message was to penetrate as quickly as we can and switch from defence to attack in the blink of an eye.

Rodgers style is too measured domestically. We give teams time to get into their shape and we then need to find a really incisive pass to cut them open. Which is difficult for us to do with the likes of Hatate. Likewise, Kyogo is suffering too, not getting enough touches of the ball and having to come deeper rather than waiting in an offside position and becoming active when we break the lines.

Lots of food for thought after the first half of the season.

It’s blind faith thinking that the Board will go out and deliver exactly what Brendan wants / needs. But we live in hope.

 

Ntcham was a dreadful signing. Dembelle wasn't his, and only cost 500k anyway. Sinclair and Edouard were good, granted, but the other 20 odd ranged from shocking to mediocre.

His records at Liverpool and Leicester were also honkin'.

 

The fundamental issue going on at our club at the moment is recruitment. It's not just an issue, it's THE issue.

I've said for months now that, while we should be targeting young players in the hope of developing them and selling them on for profit, we need to be targeting the very best talent. Whether that's from the under 21 sides in England or leagues on a level par with our own. Norway, Sweden, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, Denmark, Belgium and out with the bigger sides, Holland, Portugal and Turkey.

I used young Odin Holm as an example a few months ago when I was complaining about our lack of quality signings. 20 years old, playing well enough for a poor Valarenga side in Norway. £2.5m... was he Mooys replacement? Plays a completely different way to Mooy, in a different position. Why aren't we signing Hugo Vetlesen? Goals and Assists galore for Bodo, the best midfielder in the league. Why aren't we trying to sign him? £4.5m to Club Bruges in the summer and he's playing every game for them now.

Yang, Holm, Kwon, Tilio... what are with these signings? Better part of £8m spent on these guys and are we any better for it? Are we *. Yes, they may hit the ground running but it's a massive risk and none of them have really shown anything worthwhile. Yang had a decent game against Aberdeen and Holm has looked ok in parts. These guys weren't exactly smashing it out the park at their previous clubs, though. Yang had one goal and one assist in the K-League for * sake. He's also 21. It's not like he's 17/18 years old. I could understand signing guys at that age with those numbers but at 21? Come on, now.

I wasn't even asking us for £15m players like some were suggesting. I just wanted us to sign players who have shown some quality in leagues similar to ours. Palma has been a success. If he was Jota's replacement, he's done more than enough to suggest we could kick on. I like Abada and Maeda but it was clear as day we needed to upgrade on both. We needed a replacement for Mooy.. we sign a deep lying playmaker from Norway. We needed a new GK and a new LB... absolutely none of them were addressed and we half arsed a defensive midfielder by bringing in a guy from the second division in Korea.

I actually think we done enough at centre back. Nawrocki looked very good before he got injured and I think Lagerbielke was going to come on to a game. Scales has obviously shown up as decent cover as well. We need to get rid of Kobayashi and Phillips. CCV, Nawrocki, Scales, Lagerbielke and Welsh are fine for me.

In the summer, before we sold anyone, I wanted 5 positions addressed. GK, LB, CB, DM, RW... then we sold Jota/Starfelt and Mooy retired. That became GK, LB, CBx2, DM, CM, LW and RW. The problem is, we overly bloat our squad with projects and then when the projects don't work out, we * moan because we can't move them on. Sign some * first choice players instead of bleeding in projects who are being thrust into huge games, because of injuries.

Here is a list of players below who would have easily been affordable and would have significantly improved us.

GK
Mads Hermansen, Brondby to Leicester for £6m.
Matej Kovar, Man Utd to Bayer Leverkusen for £5m (played all cup games for them but had an incredible year before with Sparta Prague on loan)
Matt Turner, Arsenal to Nottingham Forest, £7m
Dominik Livakovic, Dinamo Zagreb to Fenerbahce, £5.5m

LB
Owen Wijndal, Ajax to Antwerp on loan
Niels Nkounkou, Everton to St Etienne for £2m(he's since moved on to Franfurt for £6.5m)
Victor Kristiansen, Leicester to Bologna on loan
Luke Thomas, Leicester to Sheffield United on loan

DM
Vinicius Souza, Lommel to Sheffield United for £10m
Ethan Ampadu, Chelsea to Leeds for £7m
Jean Onana, Bordeaux to Besiktas for £4m

CM/AM
James McAtee, Man City to Sheffield United on loan
Hugo Vetlesen, Bodo to Club Brugges for £5m
Tommy Doyle, Man City to Wolves on loan(£5m fee included for purchase)
Phillip Zinckernagel, Olympiakos to Club Brugges, £3m

RW
Ernest Nuamah, Njorsjaelland to Lyon on loan(big fee involved, think it's £12m)
Ola Solbakken, Roma to Olympiakos on loan

That's just from a brief search. There are players out there who could have made us better, instead of relying on players like James Forrest, Yang, Mikey Johnstone and David Turnbull.

 

Only you could call for the managers head after a game you’ve already admitted you didn’t even watch.

The capacity to compete I’m talking about is the resources we are hoarding, and our refusal to capitalise on a position of strength.

I’m not referring to our current squad. Hence, no contradiction.

 

better than Forrest , Johnston or yang

 

@FrankMcCallum I understand the position not you're trying to make. But periods of a game and promising signs don't put points on the board. Neither does possession; case in point last Saturday.

For me it's far too big a leap to assume the CL is a level he's at, given his record in the competition.

I'm not just talking about 6 and 7 nil duffings with us. But Liverpool too. Imagine being unable to beat Basel home or away . Or beat some Bulgarian outfit I can't even spell properly. 5 points out of that group with Liverpool is shameful.

Not to mention his European "exploits" with Leicester.
For a manager to never have taken any team to the last 16 of either the CL or the Europa League , with Liverpool, Celtic and Leicester is utterly abysmal.
Jesus, given the money on hand Leicester should've had the conference league in the bag. Just managed to scrape by Rennes and PSV by a single goal each. Then dumped out by a Roma side that got dicked by Bodo. A Roma team they'd outspent by nearly double (so I heard anyhow).

I'm sorry, but his record speaks for itself.

I have never said he's a bad manager. He's just nowhere near this "elite" level some keep clinging to. As someone above just pointed out, he's manager who can "do a job".

I'll * randy marsh myself if he proves me wrong, but I just can't see it. And not because of Atletico, Lazio, or Feynoord.
Because be can't break down a * awful Motherwell side at HOME, when you could've parked a * jumbo jet on either side of the goal.

That's not a personnel problem. That's not Yang and Palma. Thats Rodgers' tactics.

 

Is he first choice? Nah hence he chucked the dummy out. So * him.

 

forrest was getting game time ahead of him are you shocked he was * off

 

Spot on old bean. Have a like!

 

Get this bloke hired!

 

We definitely could push the boat out a bit more, but it is kind of annoying when our fans just throw out transfer fees, say we can afford it as if that's the beginning and end of it, wages are a much bigger factor, and the league we're in just isn't attractive to a lot of foreign players. Honestly if I was a pro footballer with no attachment to Celtic, you'd have to pay me more than my actual worth to come to scotland if there's a mid table team in a bigger league making an offer as well.

 

Excelleny post HH

 

Clear as day that Rodgers has the tactical nous to make strides in Europe, obviously hampered by a squad that's not up to scratch. There's no way in * his bosses are that ignorant to what is required to keep the man happy, so I expect to see big improvements over the next 2 seasons.

If he goes another 2 windows with not getting the required quality in the door, he's well within his rights to call it a day. And I'll be right on the 'sack the board' bandwagon with the rest if yous.

 

Believe what ye want.

 

Genuine question, why do people think he has tactical nous in Europe? I don't see any evidence for this with my eyes or from the stats. I feel like it's just something people say because we didn't get 'smashed' by Lazio and Feyenoord, 2 poor teams. Or is it because we drew a match with Atletico? How about the 6 we conceded 2 weeks later without any reply?

I posted this thread last night which is strangely quiet: https://www.talkceltic.net/forums/threads/cl-2022-23-vs-2023-24.156225/

It says we're worse this year than last by every attacking and defensive metric apart from shot conversion.

 

Spot on. Rodgers was supposed to improve us, yet he broke the good bits of Ange's team so they do not work all that well any more. He improved O'Riley, but not our defensive performance.