There is no doubt whatsoever that Brendan Rodgers had issues at Celtic.
But he was very good at provoking issues, and he has been for the whole of his managerial career. We know that in the summer of his departure he used alleged interest from China to leverage himself a better salary.
He then confirmed that although there was no need to.
When a manager is talking about other offers, the writing is already on the wall.
Rodgers was good at that. He was promoting himself, and when he started that you knew that he was losing interest in being at Celtic Park. Blame the board, but there is a part of Rodgers which can’t help himself.
He gets itchy feet. He has everything he wants, and always wants more.
The news that there are rumblings of discontent at Leicester are not in the least bit surprising.
The only surprise is that they haven’t come before now. As he did with the China bid, he has already told the media down south that other clubs are interested in him; indeed, he made a big thing about having turned them down.
But … the but is always there.
Now he’s provoked a showdown between himself and the board over players he says he won’t let leave in a window where he hasn’t signed anybody. He has identified targets, but those targets haven’t been gotten over the line. It’s as if Peter Lawwell has somehow got the keys to the director of football’s office at the King Power Stadium.
It is tempting to wonder if there’s more here than meets the eye.
The John McGinn fiasco aside, Rodgers had other targets in that notorious window at Celtic Park.
Our club didn’t act on them, in the same way Leicester has failed to act on the more recent ones. Why is that people stop trusting his judgement? Why is he so often over-ruled by his boards?
I always got the feeling that the China thing alerted our board to the fact that he was advertising his interest in other jobs … and saw that he would go if one of them came up, and that’s why they didn’t give him the big money spending he wanted in that window. He did it at Liverpool. He’s now doing it at Leicester.
Rodgers of course leverages this stuff into grievance. And grievance allows him to walk out of clubs with a clear conscience, provided you believe that he possesses such a thing in the first place.
The Leicester situation has too many rings of familiarity.
If I were one of their fans, I’d be preparing for the inevitable.
Watched the big interview series on Sky with BR and about 2mins on his time at Celtic.
No big job will come his way but I can actually see him following Slippy G when Villa realise he has zero coaching ability.
Brendan Rodgers. He came, he saw, he conquered and then he F’d off. Fair enough, I’ll give him his place as Hunskelper top notch. And let the slipping off in the moonlight pass by. The Ego landed then flew, would be a reasonable title for his autobiography.
I’m sure you’d have friction with the board too if Peter Lawwell was signing players on your behalf that you’d never heard of. I’m not a fan of Rodgers but he’s ambitious and Celtic wouldn’t match his ambition and now Leicester are refusing to provide funds to strengthen the team. You can imagine he’s gonna be frustrated.
I don’t follow English football or Rodgers’ career. But perhaps Leicester aren’t backing him because his recruitment is hit and miss? He certainly signed a good few players for us who did absolutely nothing.
Or maybe they’re not letting him sign people because they’re way foul of FFP and need to seriously offload.
He is a PONCE of the highest quality he wouldn’t look out of place at ibrox plenty PONCES over there.
I don’t care about Liverpool or Leicester. But don’t give me this nonsense that because he was allegedly putting it out there that he’d be interested in other “projects” that that was the reason the board didn’t give him the money he wanted to buy players. The board didn’t give him the money he wanted because Lawwell was more interested in his big fat bonus.
The history books will show just how incredibly successful Rodgers’ time was at Parkhead.
Would he have been as successful without the huge ego / self belief / arrogance?
Bringing in Rodgers was arguably the best decision our lamentable Board/DD ever made.
I’ll just remember the trophies – and the humping of sevco on a regular basis! 🙂
Well done Bob-A-Job. Spoken like the walking continent of common sense that you clearly are.
100% agree with this.
Brendan gave us some great unsurpassed times, he gave us the Invincibles season and he was responsible for the quadruple treble. I therefore cannot criticise him too harshly for his other faults and he still deserves our respect for providing a successful part of our history.
However, what he does now and in the future is of no concern to me. I don’t wish him good luck or bad luck, he is not one of us any more so let’s just move on and enjoy the Ange era.
You have that spot on Johnny.
As good a manager as Brendan is (and he is very good) he doesn’t seem to be able to do it for any length of time at the same club – Liverpool, Celtic, Leicester – amazing immediate impact at all three clubs and his improvement in the players he inherits is unquestionable BUT as time goes on he’s unable to keep that improvement and impact going and as players leave/retire etc he’s completely unable to replace them either directly or by altering the team style/dynamic/structure replace them indirectly and as a result the teams performances and results start going rapidly downhill compared to that initial impact. In summary great at REVOLUTION, not so good at EVOLUTION – not a good trait when asking for more and more funds from your board.
great article and 100% spot on.
Brendan was right to walk on Celtic,he had gone as far as he could with that joke of a board and everyone knows this,they did not back him financially enough and expected results in Champions league, it was them that cost the 10 in a row not Rodgers