When Rodgers and this team aren’t performing, they deserve stick. We all know this. None of us disputes it.
Even people like me, who are willing to give the manager a lot of the benefit of the doubt aren’t prepared to ignore it when we’re watching appalling football as we had to endure in that first half.
But today, standing in front of the BBC’s Jane Lewis, Rodgers was angry in a way he hasn’t been in a while. As has been said before, you can’t be accused of “creating a siege mentality” when you are actually under siege. All you’re doing then is reacting to circumstances.
This team has been under siege for many, many months now, even at the start when we were still putting points on the board, even after we’d been to Ibrox and won.
Part of it, we’ve brought on ourselves.
The media is full of people who, not to put too fine a point on it, are no friends of ours and they’ve been readying themselves for a day like this for a long, long time. The knives are sharp, and they’ve been preparing to stick them in.
If we’d been better these people would have been pissing in the wind, with nothing to write about and nowhere to go with their nonsense.
But a few days ago this site published a piece on Rodgers in which it was pointed out that the manager has been under this sort of scrutiny from the day he walked back in through the doors of Celtic Park. They were never going to welcome back the man with seven trophies from seven.
They were determined to turn fans against him and cut him off at the knees. The performances on the pitch have played into that and made it easy for them.
His frustration has been obvious for weeks. The narrative about the Ibrox club being the “on form team” ignored completely the defeat Rodgers inflicted on them. The number of outlets which had this league over with at the weekend ought to embarrass their whole profession, and it’s that which Rodgers was especially pissed off about today.
Rodgers made his point on that, about the “story” about the team. Lewis knew exactly what he meant and so did everyone listening to the show. She wasn’t trying to get an answer to a question, she was needling the guy. That’s why he walked out of the interview.
Let me put this in a little bit of context. This season effectively turned inside of a week in December where we lost two matches. They are the only two league defeats we’ve had this season; that’s worth pointing out and remembering. Our draws have been three 1-1’s and two 0-0’s.
If our forward players had done their jobs in those games, we’d be in a different place right now as a club. Our issues have been about small margins.
A more clinical Celtic would be well clear in this title race, and many of us have long suspected that it’s just a tweak or a single blistering result away from correcting itself, and if it does … yeah, we’ll have a good chance of winning this.
We’ve had some big problems this season, but the failure to score more goals has been the worst.
The reason today was so pleasing is that Idah looks as if he could score a lot more for us, and Rodgers used him this afternoon to unlock the door. A similar performance against Dundee, a similar second half anyway, will raise the spirits even more.
A few decent results, coupled with decent displays, will give us all a massive lift and this team with it. With eleven games to go, we’ve got to play them twice and there are two points in it. If we hit our form we’ll do it, because we’ve already won twice against them in this campaign when we’ve been badly off our game. This whole season we’ve been off our game.
Yet here we still are, with eleven games left and just two points behind. We’ve also now got a goal difference deficit but I’ve never believed it will come to goal difference and I don’t believe it now.
This team of ours is better than it’s shown so far, and Rodgers knows that and so do the hacks who would never have written the kinds of things they are had it still been the Ibrox club two points behind us, and that’s the story Rodgers is talking about.
The story of a team that is done, that should just chuck it and let the hacks and their favourite club start celebrating already. Because that’s what they want, that’s what they think should happen, they see it as inevitable, so why won’t we just lie down and die?
Well, in the general press conference, Rodgers said this about the media’s behaviour, echoing what we said the other day about the whole narrative that has been built around this campaign from the start of it right up to the present day.
“I think the story is already written for us this season, and that is the one thing that I reinforce with the players. All the noise, everything that has been around this team for virtually the whole season. We get the chance to write our story, no one else. And that is what we will do.”
Bullish stuff from the boss, but only in response to the garbage that has been slung at us, like what Sutton had to put up with yesterday when he was being pushed into conceding the race.
Why would he? Why should he? Nobody on the Ibrox side was goaded into conceding when we had a seven-point lead so early in the campaign, so it’s a joke that a two-point gap has come to be regarded in the press as being somehow insurmountable.
Jane Lewis faux bafflement at what she could have done to upset the man is as ridiculous as her so-called journalism is. He has every right to be bullish. He has every right to be pissed off. It must have felt good for him today to stand there and stick it back in their faces. That’s more like the Rodgers we’ve been waiting for. The sort that wins things.
Think BR got off easily:
if he had been interviewed by a CFC supporter he might have stormed
off in a rage!
Most don’t care what the SMSM churnalists scribble about our team.
But, there’s no denying that the team and BR have been mince all season.
2 derby wins are – just – holding our season together.
Let’s hope today’s late turnaround proves to be THAT game
which triggers a winning run to season end?
He will be forced to apologise for the good girl comment!!
Don’t know why… Cos the old hag is anything but a good girl…
And she’s certainly not a Good Ghirl for sure !
Jane Lewis! FFS
Says it all. As Huns comes she’s right up there with the worst with that whining voice and Eastern Star looks and BBC Scotland Senior Sport reporter title.
A female bellend.
Sorry James. I don’t agree with this. Jane Lewis didn’t start that point. It was Rodgers who started it and she was entitled to ask the question “What do you mean?” And Brendan’s “good girl” put-down was, frankly, embarrassing.
I get what you’re saying about Celtic being under siege and that’s fine. If that is the case, then that’s what Rodgers should be saying instead of cryptic messages that can easily be questioned in return. He should have just either kept quiet and stuck to the match or be absolutely clear and direct in what his issue with the media is.
He made a total cock of it in my view. It made him sound like he was rattled.
He ought to be rattled Roosna – with the awful football we’ve been playing and the massive lead that we’ve spunked away !
yea…as you say james….good to see rodgers angry….now get the players angry…and we will catch the hun….
and sicken the bastards entirely with an unlikely title win – IMO – anyway…
then…maybe DD can do a board rebuild in the summer…
onward and upward….good win today…good 2nd half performance.
HH
Brendan Rodgers walking away from an interview with a disingenuous cub scoop of the worst kind possible told it’s own story ! He refuses point blank to participate in any SMSM game of agendas … especially a BBC wannabe scoop !
The line about this team writing their own story was brilliant and the manager earned his crust today, after an abysmal first 45 minutes.
More of the second half performance, and we will be bang there, I think this would be the sweetest title for a long long time.
Jane Lewis is as big a Hun you’ll likely find in the media but she tries to hide it but fails miserably
True, the media coverage/, interviews celtic and sevco get is night and day in comparison it seems that at every point celtic have to be lambasted/talked down to, sneered at including ex players, but gits like miller and Boyd are given a platform to gush like cheerleaders at everything sevco .
It really stinks how biased the media is in general, the thing is they don’t seem to care it’s so blatant.
The best feeling in the world is not paying one half penny towards the Scottish Media !
Jane is a kid on Motherwell fan. Jane was probably hurting as she interviewed BR. But not cos we beat “her” team cos we didn’t, although we have in the two games we’ve played Sevco. She’s hurting cos at HT, she probably felt we’d lost this title. And the we didn’t. Fuck them all. We regroup and go again. HH
Get behind the boys,your brainwashing yourselves thepress will never give us any praise so don’t encourage them here seems most on. This page would like us to get beat. Support the team
Fuck off you clown.
It’s so embarrassing to hear and watch the bbc at times , so pro Rainjurs on the radio and Sportscene ,Absolutely terrified of the Ipox outfit !!,since they were banned from Ipox they have thrown the weight of the bbc behind Klan ,Michael Stewart is the only pundit that won’t be bullied by the Mob and bbc. Not heard the interview yet so I’ll just say we’ve bigger baws so onwards and upwards to the title HH
Well done Brendan for giving back a wee bit of what we’ve been getting from these pretentious journalists that hide their complete and utter hunnery behind I’m just asking a question. We all know what they are.
As for the “good girl” put down that I’m sure he’ll get a fair bit of backlash for from her brothers in lodges, sorry, arms. That exactly what she is a “good girl” to their cause. A fine Irish put down. More of the same please Brendan. Feckin hun media. HH
Totally embarrassing from BR – ending it with the ‘Good girl’ still makes me cringe.
Could have done with him answering the question about why the team didn’t come out and play in the 1st half. Team should be coming out firing from the 1st min, not waiting till the 2nd half to show what they can do.
Here’s for more of the 2nd half performance for the rest of the season. HH
The SMSM agenda will never change – Celtic will always be under fire, and while I don’t believe BR has done anything wrong in this instance, it could ramp up the pressure on him, which might ultimately have a silver lining.
Question is, when will he do the off?