Theres Is A Brendan Rodgers Theory Which Explains Celtic’s Lack Of Signings.

Whenever I hear a rumour, I put it through the sieve to see if anything is left of it after subjecting it to some scrutiny. You filter the story by thinking of how it tallies with the facts you have available to hand and what you know about all the people involved. There is a theory about why we’ve not made more signings in this window which is naggingly hard to dismiss. No matter which way I approach it, I find it hard to put it aside. Because it fits.

According to the theory, Rodgers has taken command of the policy to the extent that he is able. Managers by and large do not sign players. They rely on scouting and data and analytics and other things to guide them on that. A handful of bosses are also good judges of talent, but that is rarer than you might think. They do know how to build a team and they know which particularly characteristics are needed to do it … but it’s others who compile the factbooks.

The problem with the summer window is that Rodgers was handed someone else’s raw materials, and none of them were up to the job. I have described this as someone being given a second-hand computer and trying to do something with it which it was not built to do. The player selection policy in the summer was ludicrously scattershot, based on signing cheap players without any consideration for how the manager might use them. The madness was his allowing it.

He was angry over that once he realised what they were giving him, and he demanded more quality. But perhaps most significantly, he also wanted more authority. Has he gotten it? According to the theory he has, which is why his language has subtly changed.

Rodgers now talks about not just bringing people in for the sake of it. Which is exactly what the first summer window strongly suggested we were doing. Ten signings? We didn’t need nearly that many, and it was clear that many of them were signings he had no interest in. Has he now taken command of that? Has he negotiated a veto over every incoming? And has he been presented the head of recruitment list and rejected every single name on it so far?

It’s believable. Because if you know the people involved it fits their profiles, doesn’t it? The board which wants to go down the cheap route and the manager who is simply not prepared to allow another “project” signing on the books.

But where does it leave us? With an impasse.

If the board thinks that it can use this as an alibi, they are dead wrong because it makes the head of recruitment look like crap and there is literally no way they can spin that scenario as Rodgers’ fault. If he has made it clear that he will not work with substandard players and that’s all they are giving him, what are they going to do? Not sign anybody?

Hell will be paid if they attempt a strategy like that.

This window, if it closes with things in their current state, will be seen as a complete abrogation of the board’s responsibilities to the manager and a grotesque failure on the part of Mark Lawwell. If it goes wrong and we don’t win this title, then there’s no way the head of recruitment can survive that because it will be a definitive verdict on the job he’s done.

If Rodgers wins the title anyway, he looks like the genius. If they present him with bad options in the summer, and he does what he’s doing here, do we just stand still until someone blinks?

The risk to Rodgers is that there’s no way he can survive a scenario where we lose the league either. It’s also risky because they might just keep sticking him with poor choices.

Just having the veto is simply not enough, he has to press for other changes, like a raising of the wage ceiling so we can attract better players. Our wage ceiling is farcical anyway. It handcuffs us to the bottom rung of the ladder.

Do I actually believe this story? It’s hard to shake. I do believe Rodgers has drawn a line and said that he wants final approval on every player who comes in the door, precisely so we can avoid a summer like the one we just had … but God, it’s not without risks is it?

And I think in the end it’s going to be an impossible strategy to make work as long as Lawwell & Sons are picking his options for him. Yeah, it’s a step forward but not the one we require and not the one that is going to get us any joy in the next couple of days.

Like I said, I’m bracing myself for an unhappy ending to this window, something that makes a mockery of all the claims that we plan in advance or have all our ducks in a row. This has been an utter shambles and matches the summer in that regard, but far worse because now the risk of losing the title is now very, very clear and present.