Brendan Has Promised The Celtic Fans Signings … And Given Us Targets For Our Anger.

Last night, in the aftermath of the game against City, where we played really well and certain players proved what they could do, the boss sat in front of the media and answered the questions which nobody asked him earlier in the day. He talked about transfers.

And what he said should provide us with the excitement this window has lacked so far.

He made a clear pledge to bring in players, and has told us that the team will be stronger when the window has closed.

That’s a commitment he has made to the supporters. The only way he can honour that commitment is if the board acknowledges and acts according to its own responsibilities to him. They can back him or make a mug out of him.

This is where this stuff gets serious.

He’s named the two people he sat down with yesterday – Nicholson and Chris McKay – and whether or not, as some surmise, he’s put the noose around each of their necks quite deliberately or whether he was just talking and imparting the facts without any intention of causing them difficulty, heavy duty scrutiny will fall on those two men if this doesn’t happen.

We know that they aren’t the only ones at the club who bear some responsibility here, and I’m not just talking about Lawwell. We forget sometimes that there are other members on the board for whom the phrase “low profile” could easily have been coined.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not always a bad thing, but we have directors who convey every impression of being on the board for no other purpose than to rubber stamp decisions made in Dublin.

None of them should escape scrutiny if this window doesn’t go well, but that Rodgers has so specifically named those two means the weight will be heaviest on their shoulders, and that is exactly as it should be.

Because managers are always under pressure, they are always worrying for their jobs, they pay the price if things do go wrong, and directors so rarely do.

You’ll notice too that he’s drawn a contrast between the work they are doing and the work he and his staff are engaged in.

“While the club is getting on with that, myself and the coaches were really focused on the improvements of this team, physically, tactically and technically,” he said, which I suspect is where this view that he is being deliberate has come from, and when you read those remarks and place them in their full context he might well be.

Yesterday I said that we should be putting more pressure on the board over this window, and I do believe that we, the fans, have a crucial role to play. The latest podcast episode was inspired by the response to that article.

I had no idea that the boss himself was going to say his piece on this and give us a lead to follow … whether he intended to or not.

But he now has. He’s drawn a very clear line in the sand and that part of it was definitely deliberate.

He has told them they need to deliver, and that he expects them to, and the contrast between the obvious progress he’s made in getting the players up to snuff and the plodding progress we’re making on the signing front will be absolutely devastating if they don’t do it.

The new CelticBlog “emergency podcast” on the transfer window and the issues we face is available below.