This pragmatic Celtic boss will not leave us disadvantaged in battle. He only wants to win.

I often think about tactical flexibility. On the podcast, when discussing the recent game at Ibrox, Joe McHugh brought up what many of us consider Brendan Rodgers’ finest moment as a manager.

I’m sure there have been more dramatic and amazing ones, but this one really stands out to fans. It was during his first spell at Celtic, at Ibrox, when we were down to 10 men and the game was balanced at 1-1. Rodgers made the bold decision to bring on a second striker. That level of belief in his own ability—and in the team—was extraordinary, and it won us the game.

Rodgers is sometimes accused of being tactically inflexible, but I don’t think that’s fair. He makes adjustments when needed, though perhaps he’s a victim of his own high standards. We’ve seen him make brilliant tactical moves so many times that it’s hard to understand why he didn’t make certain adjustments at Ibrox, or why whatever plan he tried simply didn’t work.

It’s true that some managers can become prisoners of their philosophy, and that can be a serious problem. Let me explain why, using an historical analogy.

This comes to mind because I’m currently reading Conn Iggulden’s Wars of the Roses series, which is set in a period I find absolutely fascinating—the fallout of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France.

Take the Battle of Agincourt, for example.

Most people know it as a decisive English victory attributed to the longbow, but the context is even more astonishing. The French had overwhelming numerical superiority and should have won by any conventional measure. Yet the English tactics, built around the longbow’s devastating range and power, completely overwhelmed them. It remains one of the most decisive battles in history.

What’s even more interesting is how the French reacted in the years that followed. Despite suffering a crushing defeat, they persisted with the same inferior tactics. They preferred to use crossbowmen. Now, while crossbows were lethal within their killing range, longbows could engage their targets from much farther away. English tactics were simple but brutally effective: take out as many crossbowmen as possible first, then turn on the rest of the army.

Iggulden’s Stormbird, the first book in his trilogy, recounts a fascinating moment where the French generals debate why their army doesn’t adopt the longbow. It wasn’t proprietary technology—anyone could produce them and train men to use them effectively. Yet the French refused, for two ridiculous reasons.

The first was a fear of empowering the peasantry. Training peasants to master the longbow would give them a high degree of military skill, and the French aristocracy was terrified of a potential rebellion. That fear was so ingrained that they willingly sacrificed an incredibly effective weapon rather than risk their own men turning it against them.

The second reason was even stranger. The French viewed the longbow as a dishonourable weapon. To them, warfare was about chivalric combat—man against man, swords clashing in noble battle. The longbow, capable of cutting down soldiers from a distance, was considered unethical, the weapon of cowards.

And for these two reasons—one rooted in irrational fear and the other in an even more irrational view of war and warfare—the French chose not to utilise a weapon that could have transformed their military fortunes. It’s astonishing that they handed their principal foe such a massive battlefield advantage by refusing to adapt.

This is why tactical purists are dangerous, both to themselves and to their clubs. When their ideas work, it can look incredible, convincing you that they’ve unlocked the secrets of the universe—as if they’re the people who discovered fire.

But when they face an opponent who can read their tactics and devise an effective counter, it’s infuriating to watch. Their refusal to change, their dogged insistence on sticking to a single style, defies logic.

In the aftermath of Dortmund, Rodgers sounded uncomfortably like an ideologue. Those of us who watched the Ibrox game saw a tactic that had failed to blow the opposition away in the cup final wheeled out again at their home ground, effectively playing into Clement’s hands.

Yes, we have a distinct style of play. Yes, we want to play attractive, attacking football. But at what cost? Are we really going to dismiss other tactical approaches as beneath us? If the strategic imperative is to win, shouldn’t we be willing to use every tool at our disposal?

Think about it: what kind of kingdom can you build with an army that your greatest rival can routinely defeat because it has a weapon you refuse to use—on grounds as absurd as the French reasoning against the longbow?

I’m not saying that Rodgers is an ideologue. He’s not. Rodgers has always been a pragmatist. He adjusts when he has to, flexing to meet the needs of the moment. His teams evolve. They change. His style of play is always slightly different, even if he doesn’t like to admit it.

Take last season, for example. Coming out of the mid-season slump, it was clear that something had to change. The system was producing football that was too slow and largely ineffective against certain sides. To this day, Rodgers insists that he didn’t change anything, but I can pinpoint the exact day he did: it was the match at Motherwell.

Suddenly, we were playing aggressive, front-foot football. It was so obviously better that it was no surprise when we secured the three points, even though we had to do it late in the game. That shift carried us all the way to the finish line.

The style we’re playing now has its origins in those changes, and they weren’t revolutionary—because they didn’t need to be. They were about modest tweaks, but those tweaks had an outsized effect. We went from scoring an average of two goals per game to three, and at one point this season, we were averaging four. That kind of shift is what opened up the gap at the top of the table.

I have no doubt we’ll see the pragmatic Rodgers again. I have no doubt he’ll make tactical adjustments that will outsmart our opponents and keep us successful. He is not an ideologue, even when he might sound like one. Rodgers is always learning, always adapting. If he decides we need longbows, then that’s exactly what we’ll get.

Watch what we do in this window—it might prove instructive.

Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images

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