Are we seeing the next evolution in Rodgers’ Celtic team? If so, it’s an exciting one.

Over the course of this campaign, we’ve seen a gradual series of evolutions taking place in this team, and it may well be that its most important evolution is the one happening now. As we speed towards the end of the season, the decisions being made will shape next season’s Celtic team and what it will look like.

We have a manager who has reluctantly taken a big decision about one of his top players. Brendan Rodgers never wanted to play Maeda as a striker. He never wanted to play him through the middle. But two things have happened which a manager like Rodgers simply can’t ignore.

First, Maeda is exceptional playing through the middle. He scores goals for fun. He is a brilliant finisher, a footballer of high vision and the highest quality. And it’s difficult not to have a sneaking suspicion that this might be what he does best.

The manager said last night that he likes Maeda because he can play anywhere across the front, but he made a really good point when he said that Maeda’s success comes from the way he fits the system. As I’ve always said on this blog, the system comes first. If a manager plays the role of the architect, he wants to find the players who simply slot into it. Every manager wants to find the players who can make the system function best.

But aside from making the system work, the system can also make the man, and that’s important to consider here.

This is the message the manager is sending to the players.

The system can make the man, and a lot of our players have enjoyed success this season—and before it—because of how well the system works. That’s why you can take a player like Maeda and elevate him to new heights. It’s why a guy like Jota should never have been playing for a club like Rennes, struggling near the middle or bottom of the French league. You need to play a type of football that frees these guys to be at their very best. And that’s what we do here.

Our style of fast, attractive football gives these players the perfect platform to flourish. It gives them opportunities to grow in a different way than they would if they played for a lesser team. A team like ours, which dominates possession and plays on the front foot all the time, is a great system for players like this to thrive in. Rodgers is right about that. Rodgers is right that the system, in part, makes these guys look effective. They would be less effective in a different tactical approach.

That said, other players of a different type don’t thrive in this setup. Adam Idah, for example, is a very different kind of player from Maeda. He is great in this tactical approach at what he does, but Maeda does more. Maeda does much more. Maeda is more clinical in front of goal. And that’s why we shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t go out and sign a big-name striker in the summer. Oh, I still think we’ll sign a striker, but don’t be shocked if it’s not where the bulk of the money is spent.

If Rodgers can bring in another wide player to complement Jota, Kuhn, and Yang—and I’m going to talk about Yang in a moment—he may just decide that Maeda is as good as anyone we’re going to get through the middle.

If he doesn’t believe playing Maeda centrally will weaken the team’s shape, if he doesn’t think it will unbalance his side, and if he’s able to bring in a replacement for Maeda on the left, then I can absolutely see him making Maeda the focal point, the tip of the spear, simply because he’s proving he can do it.

When it comes down to it, Rodgers is a pragmatic man above all else. He knows that Maeda has quality beyond belief. He knows that if Maeda finishes this season with over 30 goals—and he’s well on the way—there’s a strong case for making him the central striker. Rodgers will look at it and ask himself: is it easier to replace Maeda on the left than to find someone out there who is better than this guy through the middle? Can we easily find someone who will slot into the system as effortlessly as he does?

It’s obvious that Rodgers came back to Celtic looking forward to working with Jota again. But I think even Brendan will have been surprised at how quickly Jota has hit the ground running and how effective he already looks.

We watched Jota for two full seasons, and even knowing him and what he can do, I think we’re still surprised by just how good he’s been since coming back. And this is a guy who hasn’t played a lot of football. This is a guy who hasn’t been out there doing it every week. But he looks as if he’s never been away, and he already seems to have adapted to Brendan’s style magnificently.

And I wonder if watching Jota hasn’t changed the manager’s thinking about what our strongest attacking lineup looks like. Because Jota is staking his claim as a guy you would think twice about leaving on the bench … although that’s what he was initially being brought in to do; to provide squad depth and backup.

This is the beauty of having a strong squad. And this is what the Celtic board, in their petulant little rant at Ibrox in full view of the media, didn’t understand. You sign these players to make the squad stronger.

You don’t sign them just to throw them all into the first team every week. They are about making things better overall, so that when you come up against a Bayern Munich, you have strength in depth. You have players on the bench who can come on without a notable drop in quality.

You can never have too many really, really good players.

But what Jota is proving right now is that he fits perfectly into this team. And if that has changed Rodgers’ thinking about what his best front three looks like, then I won’t be surprised. The only question is: does Rodgers believe he will be able to sign players of a high enough quality to justify changing that front three?

Another thing that may be changing his way of thinking is the development of Yang. And this is the one that really surprises me, because I would have written this guy off. In fact, I had written this guy off. Rodgers didn’t.

Rodgers stuck with him. Rodgers knew there were elements of his game that had to improve dramatically, and he and the coaching team have worked hard to help him develop into a player who can step it up and perform at a higher level. And you know what? It’s working. It’s working little by little, bit by bit.

You can see that Yang is getting better. His goal last night was excellent. And it’s not the only goal he’s scored lately. He’s starting to look like a player who can pose a real threat.

And does that change the way Rodgers thinks about the team? Does that alter the signing equation for the summer? Does he now believe that Yang is more than just a fringe player? More than just a guy who will be sitting on the bench most weeks? Is he starting to see a real footballer developing here?

See, this is my answer to all the naysayers out there who wonder what it is our manager actually does all day. Why do we call Brendan Rodgers an elite-level coach? What is it that we’re talking about?

Well, at least some of it is the way he’s made footballers better.

There’s an oft-heard wisdom in publishing that you can turn a bad book into a good book, but you cannot make a good book into a great book. And that’s almost certainly true. But you can take a modestly talented footballer and squeeze every bit of potential out of him—to the extent that he becomes a key part of your team.

We’ve seen it happen before.

Take Bobby Petta and Didier Agathe. Did you, or I, or anyone else ever believe that those two guys would be good enough to play for a treble-winning Celtic team? And I don’t just mean featuring in it—I mean being key players in that side.

O’Neill knew what they had. He saw their potential. And although neither had done it to the extent that any of us thought we were looking at first-team footballers, O’Neill instantly knew that they were.

That’s what elite coaches do. They see things in footballers that others don’t. They polish the skill set needed for those players to fit better into the system and play the way they need them to. Anyone who has watched the 6-2 game over and over again—and I have watched it so many times I feel like I could play every role in it—knows that Bobby Petta was one of the stars of the show that day. He tore the Rangers defence to shreds. Who saw that coming? Who else but the manager?

So, whatever it is that I think I know about players like Yang, I have to remember the simple maxim that Brendan knows best.

And this isn’t just true for Yang—it applies to players like Maeda and Jota as well. You can see that our midfield boy, Engels, is starting to grow into his role. He’s beginning to look like a massive presence in this team. In fact, the boss has shifted his position ever so slightly, and I think we may be turning away from Rodgers’ initial idea of making him an attacking midfielder. Instead, he’s refining the talents and skills Engels already has—the ones that made us pay £11 million for him in the first place.

That, in turn, has changed the way we play a little bit. McGregor is getting further forward again, and that’s why he was able to get his shot on goal last night and score the third before halftime. And although we might see these games as dead rubbers because the league is already won, the manager is still learning things every day. He’s trying new things every day. And with every passing game, he’s coming closer to a fuller picture of what this squad is and what it can be.

That evolution could take some rather unexpected directions, and I have to admit—I’m excited about that. My concern about losing Maeda from the left side was that it would weaken that flank. But Jota is playing so well on the left that it’s no longer a worry for me. And I wonder if it’s a concern for Rodgers anymore either. He has pointed out that Maeda can play anywhere across the front three. That’s why Maeda will continue to be one of the linchpins of the squad, no matter where he plays.

It’s also why Rodgers will go out and buy an additional piece of firepower up front. But it might also be why he doesn’t spend as much money on that area as we initially thought. Instead, he may use the bulk of the budget on another attacking wide player—unless, of course, he believes Yang can develop into that type of footballer, a proposition I would have regarded as ridiculous until very recently.

But now? Now, I listen to the manager, I watch the improvements he’s made in this guy’s game, and I wonder.

It’s worth remembering that Rodgers lost an entire summer—and you could argue an entire season. He identified the best players from Ange’s side, worked with them, and figured out what they could and couldn’t do. That has been beneficial, as we can see. But this is the first season we are seeing Rodgers’ team properly emerge. And it is still emerging. It is still evolving.

Last season, on the very last day, after the very last game, I was at Celtic Park for a small meet-and-greet with Rodgers and some of the other guys from fan media. At the end of it, I reminded him of his comments upon his return—his “See you in May” remark—and I thanked him for making good on that. But I also told him that people were saying, “Next season, you’ll see the real Rangers.”

And I’ll never forget the thrill it gave me when he replied, “They’ll see the real Celtic.”

In this campaign, he has made good on that promise too.

But as good as this team is, I don’t think we’ve seen anything close to the best version of Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic. That is still in development. And if anyone thought that process ended after Bayern Munich, or once the title was virtually secured and the Treble was almost within reach, they were wrong. That development continues. And it may just be gathering pace.

Last night, we saw the core of what the next version of Rodgers’ Celtic might look like. And I don’t know about you, but if this is the shape of things to come, then I’m very excited indeed.

Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images

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