Brendan Rodgers Is Excellent At Finding Points Of Friction With His Employers.

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.