The Latest Brendan Rodgers Stories Are The Height Of Nonsense. Why Do People Bother?

Brendan Rodgers is not going to Leicester. Those who believe it should be out looking for mythical creatures to tame. Kris Boyd is to journalism what a lump of lead is to gourmet cuisine. Hacks who link Brendan with every managerial vacancy which comes up – and in some cases, like this one, with jobs that aren’t even available yet – ought to find real work.

And I have to say, I’m really not impressed by the relationship people think a sports writer at The Daily Mail has with the Celtic board although I do care if the Celtic board has a relationship with a writer at The Daily Mail, since it is easily the most right-wing, anti-immigrant, anti-EU and anti-trade union publication in the country. Regular contact with that newspaper gave a lot of people Brexit Fever, and I know nobody wants to be catching that.

Let’s talk for a minute about speculation, and let’s try to differentiate speculation for what the media is doing regurgitating this garbage again and again.

Look, everyone indulges in speculation at times. Some of it is informed, such as yesterday’s piece about Scott McKenna. In spite of what some people think my source did not say to me, “Scott McKenna is in Glasgow; make of that what you will.”

There was a little more to it than that.

I am tickled by the idea that he was here doing a radio gig. As Joe at VideoCelts pointed out, that could have been done a little closer to home. There’s also a political aspect to it, in that if Aberdeen really were preparing to sell arguably their best player to Celtic that nobody would want that becoming public until the deal was virtually done, and there are a lot of elements to doing so. Is it a cash plus player swap? Does it depend on Aberdeen signing a replacement?

Is there a loan-back option?

I mention that one quite deliberately. Watch this space.

With so much complexity involved, it would be good for both clubs if they could mask his reasons for being here with something else. The radio thing was perfect.

Am I saying that’s what happened? I’m saying there was more going on yesterday than meets the eye. The rest is speculation, of a sort, but not just for the sake of it. By the end of the window we’ll know, but this site very deliberately does not run every transfer story that’s out there. That’s not our function and there are enough blogs out there which do.

Speculation is not always a bad thing. When it is new and fresh it keeps us entertained. It is good, for example, to speculate on whether or not Yaya Toure would do Celtic a turn. It is good to speculate on what the summer might hold if we lose our best central defenders – as we will. We can speculate on what Scottish football would be like with foreign refs.

The media’s constant chipping away at Brendan is not speculation, however. It is both the definition of click-bait and the definition of stirring the soup. It is constant. It is relentless. It is bad journalism 101 because it’s not informed; it’s throwing darts at a board. He has been linked with every job that has come up in the EPL and many which never did.

That’s not speculation. It’s sheer laziness.

The Leicester story is so bad, so ridiculous, that those involved in pushing it are in the incredible position of finding themselves on the wrong side of a debate with Simon Jordan. I find myself in the astonishing position of actually agreeing with him for once; he knows this story is arrant nonsense and he’s identified one of the key reasons why it is; the club is still suffering from the whiplash of winning the EPL and now has an overblown sense of itself.

Sacking Ranieri was a disgrace after what he accomplished. His successor didn’t even last a year. Now Puel is linked with the sack after around 18 months. “Brendan likes a project,” Boyd stated. If so, I recommend building a model railway rather than taking on the poison chalice of that particular job. The managerial hot-seat there has become an electric chair.

Say Rodgers did go there, what could he achieve? Certainly, he’ll never match Ranieri’s once in a generation accomplishment. A mid table position? It seems unlikely. European football? I can’t see it myself. It is a typical middle of the road posting, there’s no glory attached to it and no way up from there. It is not his ticket to wind up at a major football power.

Brendan Rodgers is not at the stage in his career where he would consider – where he should consider – a backward step, and that’s what Leicester would be. Everyone knows this. When the man wasn’t interested in a job at Arsenal, and when he turned down life changing money when it was on offer from a club in China last summer, why does anybody think he would move to a mid-table team with delusions of grandeur?

It is not going to happen, and aside from knowing that the articles get hits and sell papers there is only one other reason why the issue keeps arising over and over again; it’s because it drives a certain segment of our support off its nut.

Brendan Rodgers is not leaving Celtic Park for Leicester City and anyone with a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a brain cell knows that all too well.

I listened to Kris Boyd this morning.

On balance I think he does believe it.

But as you’ve probably gathered, that’s not me paying him a soaring compliment.

You can discuss this and and all the other stories by signing up at the Celtic Noise forum at the above link. This site is one of the three that has pushed for the forum and we urge all this blog’s readers to join it. Show your support for real change in Scottish football, by adding your voice to the debate.