Rodgers is preparing Celtic fans for a big change summer. Does he need to … or want to?

Brendan Rodgers hinted again yesterday that the transfer window could be very busy. He said once more that there’s a possibility of at least one key player heading out the door. That wouldn’t surprise me at all. It does suggest that we’re in for a bit of a bumpy ride, and we should fasten our seat belts. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be a bad ride—just a little more of a rollercoaster than we might like.

Last summer, I was ready for anything. We knew that O’Riley would probably go, but I was mentally preparing myself for Kyogo or others to walk as well. I think this summer I can probably take anyone departing the club except for Maeda, who I regard as the only genuinely critical cog in the wheel. Every other player, short of McGregor, I can see a way to replace. And we should always be looking to upgrade on the players we have. Maeda stands alone in this team.

Those who might want to leave, of course, have a cautionary tale in Kyogo himself, and the news that his move to Rennes has collapsed in spectacular fashion. It was the same with Jota, and to a lesser extent similar problems have arisen for Matt O’Riley. These guys all left to play regular football somewhere else and didn’t get it. There’s no guarantee that anyone who leaves this club over the summer is going to end up somewhere better—somewhere where they’re in the first team squad every week.

Rodgers said yesterday that the plans for the summer have been in motion for many months. I would think they’ve been in motion since at least January, and that we had already identified a player to come in—either out wide to replace Maeda, or through the middle to replace Kyogo himself. Rodgers has admitted that the plan has been altered by the injury to Jota. I would have been really surprised if it hadn’t been.

On the surface, there seems to be quite a bit of uncertainty, but I wonder if there’s quite so much of it behind the scenes. Take Greg Taylor, for example. You would imagine that the Celtic boss already has a very clear idea about what Greg Taylor’s future is going to be. You’d think the manager already knows whether Taylor intends to stay or go, and I think we’ll already have made some decisions based on what Taylor ends up doing.

The manager has said there are no players banging on the door to leave. But he’s also said that some of them have been at the club for a while now, and we know that this kind of movement is pretty much par for the course. After a player’s been at the club a while, he will want a move—and the club will know when the best time to give him one so we can cash in might be. So, on that front too, I would imagine we already have a very clear idea of who will be staying and who will be going.

That’s what it comes down to. What I’ve always said—it comes down to whether you trust the manager.

Do you trust Rodgers to build a good squad for next season, to know what he’s doing, and to put in place a vision that takes us forward over the next couple of years? Cause if Rodgers is doing a rebuild, he’s not doing it to leave at the end of the campaign.

It’s complicated slightly by another question—do you trust the board to back Rodgers? And that’s a harder one to answer, because those of us who believe in Rodgers have long wondered what he might achieve if given proper backing.

The real question is whether or not he will be.

But the man himself sounds very relaxed, although by his own admission, this is going to be a more complicated summer than it might have been. And he was saying this before Kyogo was sold, before Jota was bought, and way before Jota was injured. It seems Rodgers has always been mentally preparing for this summer and for big changes to the team.

But here’s the thing—is Rodgers preparing because he has to? Or is he preparing because he wants to? Those are very different things. Very different scenarios.

See, if he’s preparing because he has to, then he’s doing it because he knows who’s going to leave and who’s going to stay. He knows what areas of the team he wants to fix—and has to fix—if we’re going to maintain our current strength, or even get stronger.

But it may well be that Rodgers, who knows all about the third-year being the killer, is prepared to break this team up. It may be that he wants to transform the team for that third season—that this is not accident, but design.

It may just be that Rodgers sees the need for change and recognises that if you’re going to play with the same style for three years straight, that’s going to cause problems. That’s going to give teams a chance to read your game. And if you’re going to play with the same players and the same system, then you’re basically asking for trouble.

We’ve all talked about this and we know it’s a possibility. I’m just wondering, based on what Rodgers said yesterday, if this is part of his thinking. If he isn’t merely anticipating the sale of key players, but planning the sale of key players because of what he intends to do with the team.

Both are interesting possibilities. Change has been well telegraphed. The question is which one does he have in mind? He is certainly preparing us for a much more complicated summer than we originally thought.