The boss spoke to the media again last night, in build up to this evening’s game against Chelsea, and he made clear what some of his priorities are for the squad.
He reiterated our need for two front men to be signed.
He reiterated the requirement that we sign a left back to challenge Taylor, and he made it plain that he wants Taylor tied down on a new deal.
On the surface of it, this is nothing particularly controversial. He hasn’t made demands or anything here, but in saying that he wants a new deal for Taylor he’s giving the board a push to get that task completed, since it seems to have been dragging on a bit.
He made it plain that at this club we do not allow players to walk away on freedom of contract, and certainly not when those players are so valuable to the club as our current starting left back.
But he’s made it clear too that he’s chatted to Taylor and laid out for him some of the realities that he will have to face later on in this window, when he gets the full-back cover that he is after. Taylor, he says, has taken that in the spirit he hoped for, something we talked about on this blog before.
He is one of those players who is at his best when he’s under pressure and he has welcomed the challenge before and presumably will do so again.
The boss doesn’t want to talk specifically about incomings, and when you see the way this window has gone you can completely understand the reason why. Things go wrong. Things don’t get done. Any promise he makes us will be held against him if it doesn’t come off. This has been an abysmal transfer period, and it’s one that doesn’t make a single one of the executives look good. He’s content to make it plain that he’s leaving them to it.
But he cannot be content with the job they’ve done for him so far, and the impression grows that he’s giving those above him the long-required kick up the backside. It’s hard to believe that it has come to that, but here we are, almost in August, without a single first team player coming through the doors, even as we sit on an obscene cash pile.
This is the boss asserting himself and making plain what he expects to get for the job he has done so far. He deserves to be backed. He has to be backed. Anything less simply won’t do.
It is interesting to listen to Rodgers and how respectful he is of other clubs.
Even when names are thrown at him he doesn’t talk about them, and it’s not just that he’s not going to make big promises. He would be righteously pissed off if another club talked about one of our players, and I’m sure he was particularly irritated by the Southampton manager Russell Martin who had a long discussion with the press about Matt O’Riley, a subject Rodgers is probably bored to death with but where there has been no further movement and isn’t likely to be.
I’ll talk about that a little bit later.
But on one other subject he was completely unequivocal; no bids for Kyogo Furuhashi will even be entertained. He has praised the player’s quality whilst pointing out that at this moment in time he’s our one available striker. I doubt he’d be sold even if we already had another in the bag. The boss took a while to work out how to utilise the Japanese Bhoy, or maybe Kyogo took a while to adapt to what he wanted him to do … either way, you can see the results in pre-season.
He is one of the players I think we’re all looking forward to watching in the season ahead. I know I am, and tonight’s game will be the last friendly before the real stuff starts next weekend. Fingers crossed that he comes through that one unscathed.
We’ve all endured a very frustrating window, probably nobody more so than the manager himself. We should, theoretically, see a dramatic upping of the pace of business once we’re back from the US tour, which has so far been a tremendous success.
But the boss has met with the key people, and now he’s laid out what some of his demands are. It’s now in the hands of those above him to get their jobs done. He is focussed, right now, on doing his, but he’s telling them what the non-negotiables are.
Our recruitment seems solely focused on England. The most overpriced market in world football. Why is this the case? Well due to the fact we have no recruitment team it appears it is the manager who is identifying targets and that is where his player knowledge is the strongest.
It also appears we seem incapable of working on more than one deal at a time, again this is because we have no one other than directors working on concluding deals. Brendan said it himself, Nicholson and McKay are the ones dealing with signing players.
It’s a shambolic state of affairs, it won’t change until there is a change of executive leadership at the club and there appears no chance of that happening while our shareholders sit quietly in the background contributing nothing to the club.
I understand why Rodgers said Kyogo isnt going anywhere but it would be refreshing if we did the same with O’Reilly. As a club with ambition we need to be keeping our best player. O’Reilly is only going to get better and better and if we have any ambition he is a player we need to keep. I don’t understand why we need to sell him and then have to look for an O’Reilly type player. Yes, we have a trading model, however with near £100m in the bank we need quality players rather than £s in the bank.
I hope you’re right James about BR asserting himself,I just don’t share you’re optimism that this board will do much to help the manager who has stated since last summer that he needs players to cover certain positions and cover for players leaving.like you say it’s nearly August what has the board been doing all this time they knew when the season ended what BR wanted and still nothing.
No messing then !
Looks like Brendan’s in charge this time around unlike ‘Sonny’ Lawwell last time…
Well I sincerely hope my ascertation is somewhat correct anyway !
Who exactly is lining up options for Brendan? I understand the guys upstairs are the people who put the deals together, but who is scouting for targets for the areas Brendan needs cover?
Shareholders have to be looked first before any players are bought.Clubs should be run by fans for the fans.Shareholders are parasites and clubs can be run without them.
Why can’t we be told the truth,what were and who made the promises to Rodgers for him to agree to come back,I don’t see any difference or improvement from his first spell,in fact to me it seems worse with more penny pinching going on,what is the reason for having a massive bank balance and who’s benefiting from it?because it’s certainly not the manager and playing squad.
Brendan is playing a blinder. If the board are, indeed, dragging their heels in terms of getting the bodies in that we need (not want, need), we have a serious problem on our hands.
When Brendan left us for Leicester he was rightly castigated by the Celtic fans. But the sensible fans (and there are a few of those) recognised that although the timing was off, he definitely had valid reasons to leave. If he is given another excuse to leave, I will be 100% behind any fan action to get Lawwell and Co to absolute f*ck.
The time is NOW, Celtic. Brendan is playing a slick game. That is if there is a game to be played. It could very well be he’ll get everything he wants and more. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
To fair big Ange addressed the Spurs fans in the same way as Brendan has the Celtic fans. He asked them to be patient as there are complications when trying to sign good players that other clubs are after. The same prolonged saga that’s going on with Idah is also going on with O’Riley and Mc Tominay and others. Most done deals seem to be loans and free agents, so maybe there’s hope yet.
Guys please realise that our club is being set up to be sold ??
Massive cash plus bank balance
Guaranteed income from c/l
Guaranteed trophies every year
Regular plus profit from sales of our best players
No brainer
And let’s try and guess who will profit most from Sale
DD/ PL and rest of lackeys on board
Might not be a bad thing.