Rodgers Praises The Celtic Players “Integrity” For The Second Time In As Many Days.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece on Brendan Rodgers’ comments whilst he was talking to the club’s own media channel. I found his choice of words highly interesting; he praised the players for their honesty and their integrity. That was not casual language. You praise footballers for their skills on the ball, you do not praise them for those things.

But of course, there was a point there, and one Ibrox player at least who showed the opposite of those things. There was also his manager who not only refused to condemn his behaviour but who insisted that none of what we thought we saw had happened anyway.

Rodgers might have been hoping to shame the press into discussing it, and thus discussing the overall conduct of the club at Ibrox. But he’s been here long enough to have realised just how unlikely that was. I think he just wanted to praise the players and send a message to the rest of us about how proud he is of them for keeping their composure and not resorting to that.

Today he echoed those sentiments yet again, and this time the barb – because there was a barb in the initial statement – was also aimed at the Ibrox club’s fans and those other despicable actions from the weekend which everyone knows happened but that nobody wants to acknowledge; the objects that were thrown at the Celtic coaches and players.

“The integrity of the team on the field and the staff off of it, was exemplary. That’s what we want. It’s not ideal – these situations – in the games, but our integrity on and off the pitch was superb.”

If ever a Celtic manager’s statement about the conduct of the team, and his staff, should be applauded, it is here, and now.

And as with the other day, this needed to be said. Because who else is saying it? Nobody else. Everyone at Celtic has behaved with grace and dignity and they did that on the day and we’ve gotten no praise for it … and the reason we’ve gotten no credit for it is that the media can’t give that credit to us without shining a light on the rest of the events.

They just aren’t going to do it. Rodgers knows it. He wants it on the record anyway, but he knows that no praise is going to come our way for it at all.

The media preferred to write, in the aftermath of the game, about how Ibrox had the “moral victory” and since Wednesday about how hard done by their team is over Dundee probably now having to play a home game at a “neutral” ground. What a joke.

Their club made a phony offer to play the game at a “neutral” venue in front of no fans. That fits in perfectly with their behaviour before, during and after the match at the weekend. They have played every card that the dark arts have in the deck, from the media campaign to the behaviour of the players on the pitch. They are a disgrace and the press plays a full role in helping them push their false narratives and their obvious agendas.

Rodgers continues to be the voice of dignity and respect. Not that you would know it. He doesn’t get credit for that at all, instead he is targeted by manufactured controversies like the Jane Lewis one and his supposedly “mixed” relationship with the fans. Maybe at one point this season, but the longer it has gone on the more fans have come to respect him again.

And this is why. Because he takes pride in doing things the proper way and he wants that pride to be filtered down throughout the team. We have standards and he will not allow us to fall below them, even in pursuit of victory … and I admire and respect that and see in it the qualities I want from this manager, these players and the wider club.

That’s not to say I don’t want to see us use every weapon in the arsenal; I certainly do and I cannot understand why so often we don’t even load up our guns, far less turn up with them, against the media and against the governing bodies … but never forget (and they should never forget) that those guns are there should we ever decide to get tough.

Rodgers was excellent today, and whilst (as I said earlier) the news that the manager delivered wasn’t all good (that’s an understatement) he did us proud and he set the right tone for the rest of this season.

Shame on those in the media who pretend not to know what he was doing, or what he was trying to get them to finally acknowledge.