Regular readers will be well aware that I’m starting to find Chris Sutton more than a little tiresome this season. This morning, to the shock of nobody who has been watching, he’s had another go at Brendan Rodgers.
Rodgers is not a man without sin, not someone who should be denied a share of the responsibility for this bin-fire season, but anyone placing the responsibility for this calamity solely on his shoulders is badly out of step with the reality of it.
Speaking on Sky, Sutton said, “Everyone talks about stuff about the board and signings and this moment being a long time in the making. But Brendan Rodgers has to take responsibility.”
He then put forward the idea that we should be playing more like we did under Ange.
Which is probably the point in this debate where I most want to find a sharp object and impale something on it. It’s when you know somebody’s viewpoint is too moronic to be taken seriously, because it’s a bit like saying that Sutton himself could have had a better managerial career if only he had gotten his Lincoln City team to play more like Barcelona.
That’s the logic of his position.
Because getting a manager to clone the style of another manager is basically what he’s suggesting Rodgers do here. How can that be a serious debate point?
How can he have spent so long in football and not recognise how daft that is?
Let’s stop messing about here; this canonisation of Postecoglou is pretty ridiculous when you break it down. We built this team to his standards, to his design, and if you believe the board apologists on this (and on this one I do because their defence of the strategy is too barmy to be something they made up and just mental enough to have a ring of truth to it) the club based its summer signing profile on the idea that he would still be here.
We don’t know how well or not Ange style football would have worked in the third year, but there’s a reason people in football subscribe to that ancient superstition that “the third year is the killer”. Because any manager who has one certain way of playing gets found out after a while.
Why do you think I’m so sure Ibrox will drop enough points this season that we could yet still win this with games to spare? (The problem will be our form, not theirs.)
It’s because once clubs adapt to how Manneken Piss sets his team up they will counter it.
This is why The Mooch got off to such a great start with his team but then watched it unravel fast; once teams have found that magic bullet, they all use the same tactic and any boss who is inflexible will find himself furiously digging in an ever-deepening hole.
My own suspicion is that form would have taken a major dip even under Ange.
We already know that significant players would have been leaving in the summer, and we can already see what state the club’s strategy for replacing them was in.
Sutton has never struck me as a particularly weak individual, but I think it’s time to seriously start questioning his motives for attacking Rodgers so relentlessly.
This by itself would be at least partly excusable if he was also pointing his guns at the Celtic director’s box, but his complete unwillingness to go there suggests that he’s either been co-opted by them or is scared to make enemies of them by writing the bald, simple fact that they are the architects of this crumbling ruin.
His comments could also spring from personal animus against Rodgers himself; I have no way of knowing whether or not that’s the case, but I find his recent output to be almost universally lamentable and his obvious desire to steer criticism away from the men in the boardroom is no longer possible to ignore or deny.
The Sunday Mail has a ridiculous piece taken from a deranged caller on Radio Clyde yesterday who accused the manager of laughing towards the end of the game yesterday.
I don’t know why that individual was watching the dugout and not the pitch, but if Rodgers was laughing, I suggest it was more in resigned horror than good humour.
But he’s not the only one who must have been laughing.
The people truly responsible for all this must be pissing themselves because there is no pressure whatsoever on them at the moment, and Sutton for one would clearly like to keep it that way.
Can’t quite understand this defence of Rodgers. He has a squad of players that should be able to wipe the floor with these teams
It’s like them playing under the mooch. Dropping points and no signs “at all” of the players blending or improving.
The players look clueless on the park.
And thats down to Rodgers. If they can’t play his system then it’s up to him to fix it and six months down the line it’s still broken.
The board shoulder much of the blame but Rodgers isn’t blameless in all this. Kilmarnock’s wage bill is 7% of ours yet we’ve only beaten them once in 4 games, losing twice. That just shouldn’t be happening with the squad Rodgers has at his disposal. Derek McInnes and others have easily worked out how to play against us. Our play is slow, turgid and predictable. That needs to change quickly if we’re to retain the league title. So whilst I entirely agree that the board have once again been asleep at the wheel, Rodgers should be getting a better tune out of the players he’s been saddled with.
Why don’t you stop sniping at Sutton who is a genuine Celtic fan and always talks the Scottish game up. The board are a disgrace and needs chased however Brendan has not covered himself in glory either. Do you feel you are ok to criticise Celtic or the manger but he is not? I like reading your columns however I am now finding you tiresome in your criticism of Chris Sutton.
Well see, the reason I respect YOUR opinion and not his is that you are spreading the blame evenly, and you’ve identified the board as the bigger problem. Sutton PROTECTS the board as he goes after the manager. That’s suspect. That’s selective. And I think we’re all entitled to ask why his criticism stops at the manager’s door.
Who does it benefit for Sutton to undermine the manager and spare these leeches?
I agree that the board has shafted the playing side big time but the argument that Rodgers needs players to play his system does not hold up with me.
Football is not a game of Chess between two managers where one prefers to open with Queens Gambit and the other with Sicilian Defence. Players should have a natural ability that can be improved upon and not stifled by a manager who seems to have the idea that this really is a game of Chess. We have pawns out wide who will not take a man, they block the Rooks from moving forward which is a strong attacking move. We have Knights in midfield who rather than move two forward and one to the side prefer to move one to the side and two back. He plays without Bishops therefore no diagonal movement. Our strongest player the Queen is without support and our King being the team as a whole is constantly in check and soon to be Checkmated. Rodgers needs to throw the board away and stop playing square pegs in round holes.
Other than losing CCV and Rio to injury, the loss of Jota, Starfelt and Jacko there should be enough about the team to dispose of the dross that is in the League. Sutton is right on the money re the performances and style of play. Let the players do what took them to this level of football and stop playing Chess.
Has Chris Sutton said Rangers ain’t Rangers?Of course he hasn’t why would anyone care what he says.
Rodgers seems like a nice guy who you might enjoy a Guinness with in The Glencloy Bar in Carnlough while discussing which spinners to use for the mackerel in the sea across the road or which of The Glens is the best with the views across to Scotland…
He also seems to be too nice with these bloody lightweight shysters that Sonny Lawwell has foisted upon him –
But he can also come across as being pig headed and unwilling or unable to change tack no matter what both him and the rest of us see unfolding in front of our eyes…
How do I know this without knowing Brendan personally ?
Simples – The standard of football since October 2023 !
How did we even manage to where we are. We were 8 pts clear and now we trail by 2. Just in case nobody’s aware this is an implode. This team has looked worse as the weeks have progressed. The manager asked for help during the winter break and never got it. We bragg about how rich we are. The owner of Celtic Football Club is worth 2.2 billion pounds yet the average guu who has Celtic at heart is the loser. We should all bycott the team we love but he knows that won’t happen. HE’S ON A WINNER
On the night the transfer window closed I was at an audience with Sutton and hartson in Cork. Sutton wad asked about the clubs lack of ambition . His answer was so flippant it really surprised me,even mocked the questioner saying he was being miserable
Any odds on Brendan getting sacked and Celtic hiring Roy Hogson.
Or mibbees Hogson going to Ross county
All said tongue in cheek ..
I don’t think at this point it matters what Chris Sutton says or believe’s who’s at fault. Your still talking about us winning the league with points to spare. I wish I had the same faith as you because every game is now a problem, winning is now a problem and Motherwell this weekend will be no different. Celtic are haemorrhaging points every week. Waiting for the Rangers to drop points might all be too late