So we’ve just exited from the first full week of Rodgers 2: The Return. The team is back in pre-season training today, but last week was far from a quiet introduction to the job. We know that Brendan is already up to speed – he watches every Celtic game, as he pointed out – but today he’ll get his first look at the players in training, and from here we’ll see.
But that week just past was a beauty. And it was full of stories as you would expect.
We, as a club, generated three of them; the signing and unveiling of Holm with the unveiling of Rodgers himself, the signing of the young Aussie Marco Tillio and the launching of a new strip. We also had a friendly cancelled on us.
It ended with Jota on the brink of a move to Saudi Arabia.
And you know, I regard that as a busy week for us because our club doesn’t usually generate as many news stories as that – actual news stories as opposed to ludicrous rumour factory nonsense – in such a short space of time.
Everything at our club moves faster now. Rodgers is barely in post and we’ve signed two players and look to be moving one on. It’s obvious that wheels are in motion and that plans are being actioned even as I write this, and that means that what seemed like a busy week might turn out to be quiet by comparison to the ones that lie ahead.
Maybe we should start getting our heads around the idea that by all prior standards, we should be dominating the news cycle in the next month.
But of course, that depends on the media reflecting events at Celtic Park in the correct and appropriate way … which last week they didn’t do.
When a club has unveiled a new boss, signed two players and launched a strip you would think that would be a tremendous week, with unparalleled coverage. But the media has focussed much of its time and attention on praising Ibrox and trying to maintain that we’re in the midst of some kind of meltdown. It’s a bizarre tactic for them to be utilising.
The strip launched was panned. The tour of Japan was said to be in turmoil.
The signing of Jota is supposed to throw us off our game. The manager’s unveiling was criticised because there weren’t 13,000 at it, as there was the last time he was unveiled.
And across the street, the rosiest picture is painted of a club in the midst of a “revolution” instead of one that’s simply replacing its own deadwood from the English free transfer market and Assorted Relegated Teams Of Europe.
In a sane world it would be the new manager bringing in two players and immediately setting his imprint on the team that would be hailed as revolutionary, but what do I know? Yes, the deals were advanced by the time his own appointment was made official, but you know what? The guy would have had advanced knowledge and approval on both.
I personally think it was a great start, a proper example of someone hitting the ground running and pushing forward. Now that he’s got the players in training he can do an evaluation from the ground up, even as our plans continue to progress in the background.
There are a lot of rumours – I’ll let The Rumour Guy talk about one of those later, as he’s a big fan of one of the footballers named – and talk of us breaking our transfer record, something I would have said was a moon-shot just a few weeks ago but now is beginning to look increasingly like it could happen.
That’s a good cause for being excited right there.
Last week was busy, but the real revolution in this city started with the Rodgers unveiling.
This is the week that it kicks into high gear.