Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

Honest to * Jake you sound like a boyfriend who's been passed over for your best mate Time to move on it's a new season and we should only be thinking of one thing and that's harmony around the club. It breeds success. I don't care who brings it. While he's our manager he will have my backing. I don't need to be bowled over by a charismatic personality! No manager is deserving of a halo they're there to do the job and that's all we can ask of them.

 

After hearing the interview, I'm quite depressed regarding Celtic in Europe this year. Rodgers apparently accepted that there won't be high-level players brought in to help us survive in Europe. He came in without any guarantees or assurances. I suppose his stock is terrible following his last Leicester season, and the board hold all the cards.

 

Not at all. Thought he was respectful, humble and realistic. The talk of £12m plus players looking at it now the hype's passed, is fairytale stuff. I think he wants real progress in Europe, but again is realistic enough we we are and how to get there.

As mentioned in the crucial summer thread just there, you can absolutely buy very good players for around £6m. Jota, CCV, Kyogo and even the big beautiful swede. Think fans would accept that if that was our market now. No doubt the loan to buy option is there as well and spending 9 or 10m on a player would be done again if the option and quality is there for us. Having a good business model allows us that flexibility and a bit of room for error also.


I have no doubt BR is one of the best out there at developing players, so I look forward to see how the squad evolves in the next year.

No getting round yes, certain positions need addressing. GK and LB massively. CM and Jota replacement just behind that. But I trust the manager, Nicholson/Lawell and coaches to get it right.

 

Do you know what's really depressing? It's people writing us off before a ball is kicked. We got taken by surprise by Ange's signings and now a few more in the door may prove to be the hidden gems that can help us go further. Another couple of signings if made to take us further again. BR is still a good manager irrespective of what happened at Leicester and if he hadn't come to us I'm sure that he wouldn't have been short of offers. Whether we like it or not we are a selling club and we gamble on success in Europe year in year out. That's the nature of our game because we don't have all the wealth these other clubs have. Another run in Europe will come for us we just have to get behind the team and the manager.

 

BR is an offensive-minded manager, and significant investments are needed if we aim to play like that in Europe. Investments he just ruled out, specifying what won't be spent on a player. Or keeper is ill-suited for possession football, for example. Our main LB cannot overlap like Rodgers wants to. We've stupidly sold our best LW.
If we played simple, defensive football, we could do without £15M signings. Since that is not how we roll, such signings are necessary in Europe, given our past failures.

 

Investments he just ruled out? He said we wouldn’t be shopping in the £15-20mill buckets. Are you saying that’s what we need? Players at that level of investment? He also said he wants a few more in the door, so is that not investing? Who’s to say we don’t pick up 2-3 at around £7-9mill? That’s the level I would expect us to operate at, not splashing £20mill on someone. Honestly mate get a * grip

 

I was underwhelmed with his appointment. A little due to how he left I suppose. Added to that I would have preferred we didn't go down the 'lazy' route. Can't bear another 'Lennon' fiasco. I know there were a lot of moving parts to that season however.

That being said I'll always support the manager because he picks the team and I'm a Celtic supporter. Pretty basic stuff. The talk of marquee signings tends to go over my head. I'm sure when we first got Rodgers one of his first quotes was that he loved getting on the training pitch. That's what he loved to do.
So I'm intrigued to see what he'll do differently with what we've got.

I think we've got plenty of players who can go up at least another couple of levels. O'Riley,Hatate,Abada etc.

That being said if we let this window go by without addressing the GK issue I'll be very disappointed. Hart has been in the main part solid, but he is clearly on the decline.

 

Who says we wont sign players to improve those positions? There's a way to go in the window.

 

If you're in the market for something you don't come out and state what you've got to spend. He's not gonnae come out and say 'aye we're looking for a player and we're looking for a £10-£15m player at that'. How * stupid would that be.

 

To be honest, it's too much of a risk to spend 15/20 million in this league. I wouldn't expect us to spend that amount. I don't even know who we'd go for, or who we'd get for that amount who would be guaranteed to be more effective than players we brought in like CCV or Kyogo. I'd love for us to be more successful in the CL but I'd expect us to continue with careful scouting the way we have been, and I'm fine with that.

 

I really don’t think he would have considered coming back without certain budget promises. What he has to spend and what he tells the media are 2 completely different things.
After taking pre-season he knows exactly what we need to help in Europe, whether that type of player, or the ones he’d ideally want, are willing to come here is another story. I’m sure there will be more signings, hopefully of a higher calibre and not just high potential young projects.
Our relationship with the City group has yet to be utilised, which would be another option.

 

With his track record doesn’t rule out that we’ll be making a couple of £15-20m signings either

 

It's their ability that's the problem. Can these signings do everything necessary for the adventurous play Rodgers will have us trying?

 

Give it a rest for fucksake..

 

Something the Irish commentator said on Saturday made me see him returning in a different way.

He was talking about us having a transfer model in place where we sign young, generally unknown talent and develop them for profit and said we appointed Rodgers due to his strengths in developing players and to help that business model.

Tbh I always just kinda looked at it as he was a successful ex manager who was out of work and was keen to return.

I did kind of think we would do similar to the last time he was here, well 1st 18 months at least, where we just kinda binned our strategy and let him and congerton spend big but his comments since returning kind of lend weight to the commentators on Saturday and it's more that he's here to support the strategy as opposed to rip it up.

Lot of people's biggest fear of him returning was his transfer record, doing it this was hides his negatives and focuses on his major strength of developing players.

 

Nicholson said as much at the press conference

 

Brendan Rodgers admitted his return to Celtic Park felt like coming home – but insists he’s ready to 'prove' himself all over again.

Celtic triumphed 3-2 over Athletic Club on an evening of tributes for James Forrest’s testimonial, currently the joint third most decorated player in the club’s history. He was given a rapturous reception by a considerable Celtic Park crowd of 43,447, who also rose as one to applaud Rodgers on his first Parkhead outing since returning as manager. So, as well as being made up for Forrest, he confessed that being greeted with such warmth was an emotional moment for him.



Overall I was really pleased for James,” said Rodgers. “To win the game is nice for him on his testimonial game. The second half team was excellent.

“Amazing, it feels like home. I’ve been fortunate enough in my career to manage some fantastic, big clubs. There’s nothing given me the feeling of being back here with people I regard as family, and just being in the arena here.


I’m looking forward to it, I guess I want to relish every second of it. Going away made me realise what I had, I was never sure if I would have that again. So, to be able to have it again I want to enjoy it on the pitch with the players, the staff and obviously the supporters. But for that I need to prove myself and win again.


Clearly it always means a lot [to get a good reception]. My priority is to make a team here to continue with the standards that have been set over the last decade or so. It’s important that we are all together in order to achieve that. The Celtic supporters are amazing. They support their team and I think what makes this team is that they get behind their manager and we all go together from the weekend to push on. It is very important for us to be together


I think we have built it up really well. The players didn’t have a long break but they have come back and we have worked our way through. We’ve put a lot of hard work into them. At times they’ve maybe looked a little bit leggy but that’s because it’s pre-season and it’s preparation but as it’s gone on they’ve looked sharper and brighter. Come Saturday, when it matters, we will be ready for sure.”

With their Premiership title defence kicking off at home to Ross County on Saturday, Rodgers welcomed Cameron Carter-Vickers into his team for the first time since the centre-back’s knee surgery. Anthony Ralston was also back in the fold having missed every other pre-season outing to date. But he’s unsure whether either player will be ready to start at the weekend.

“We will see. We have to analyse that over the next couple of days but it was great to have him back. He is a very important player for us. He got through the 45 minutes. Tony Ralston as well, coming back, it was great to have Tony on the pitch as well.”