The agenda against the Celtic boss now seeks to drag in Ange. It’s ridiculous.

There’s a narrative doing the rounds—peddled on forums, in pubs, and by the same cheerleading hacks who think everything inside Celtic Park is always fine—that Brendan Rodgers is a chronic complainer. That he moans about transfers constantly.

Worse, there is a new version of this rubbish; that he never shuts up and that this somehow makes him inferior to Ange Postecoglou, who apparently kept quiet, waited his turn, and trusted the process like some Zen monk in a tracksuit.

Let’s just be clear from the off: that narrative is absolute bollocks.

It’s not only wrong—it’s deliberately dishonest, manufactured by people who want to discredit Rodgers for holding the board to account, while mythologising Ange as a kind of managerial Buddha who simply smiled and let the good times roll.

But the truth, as ever, is far more interesting. And far less comforting for those desperate to protect the suits upstairs.

Because when you dig into what both men actually said, and when they said it, a very different picture emerges.

Let’s go back to July 2021. Celtic were out of the Champions League qualifiers before the season had even properly begun. Ange had been parachuted into a post-Lennon disaster zone, handed a broken squad, and told to work miracles while the club dithered on recruitment. And he made it perfectly clear how unhappy he was.

“I’ve probably been as forceful as I can be in terms of letting them know what we need,” he said. “The challenges we’ve had with players leaving or wanting to leave, and we’re trying to rebuild a squad at the same time, has been a hell of a challenge.”

That’s not the voice of a man patiently sipping green tea and waiting for the universe to unfold. That’s frustration. That’s pressure. That’s a man keen to get on with his job aggressively demanding that those above him do theirs.

Ange didn’t have the board’s full trust yet. He’d arrived from Japan as an outsider, unknown to many in Scottish football and even to some inside the club. So, he had to push. Hard. And when we crashed out of Europe to Midtjylland, he took the public heat but made damn sure everyone knew he’d been warning about it behind the scenes.

It worked. Because after that debacle, things changed. He wrestled power. He got it into his own hands. The club got their act together because Ange won that struggle. From that point forward, until Mark Lawwell was in the room, he had authority. He was listened to. And, as a result, he didn’t need to publicly moan anymore.

Now compare that to Brendan Rodgers—first time and second.

In summer 2018, the McGinn fiasco dominated the headlines, although as I’ve written it wasn’t the only player the club messed him about on. But McGinn is what tripped his switches and he lost the head. Celtic dragged their heels and lost out on a player who, to this day, still looks tailor-made for Parkhead. Rodgers wasn’t subtle in his response.

“My job is to manage and develop the players we have, but the club know my thoughts on what we need,” he said.

He talked about the need to “complete deals” and warned that if the club didn’t match his ambition, he couldn’t do his job properly. It was the famous “Terminando” presser, and the club was rocked to its foundations.

But that wasn’t petulance. That was strategic. He saw the writing on the wall—a board more focused on balance sheets than trophy cabinets—and he tried to shift the direction.

And here we are again. In summer 2025, Rodgers has returned to a club that still can’t seem to act quickly when it matters most. And once again, he’s telling the truth.

“Clearly I’m not convincing the club quickly enough on certain players,” he said last week.

How is that any different from what Ange said in 2021? It isn’t. Both men hit the same roadblock. Both men flagged it. It doesn’t suit certain agendas to highlight the remarks from Ange because that would undermine the case against Rodgers … and that case is being pursued in more than one place.

The latest place this theory was aired was on the Open Goal podcast by Paul Slane. Now, I don’t want to go into mega detail on this one, because the matter has already been covered – and covered well – by one of the other sites. Celtic Star did a great piece on it, and in that piece they pointed out something quite crucial: Open Goal is a company owned by one of Peter Lawwell’s sons.

The comments about how “this is our Brendan” and “this is what Brendan does” – they could have come straight out of Lawwell Senior’s own mouth. In fact, I have heard them come out of Lawwell Senior’s mouth.

This isn’t a case of two different types of managers. This is the same manager’s dilemma—twice, from two different men. The only difference is how it’s being spun.

Ange got his complaints in early and won the backing of a club still reeling from disaster. Rodgers has had to flag this many different times. The problem is not with the manager doing the moaning but those others at the club who drag their feet.

You’d think fans would recognise this pattern by now.

Rodgers isn’t complaining for fun. He’s trying to force the issue. He sees the same creeping complacency that’s derailed us before. And just like Ange in 2021, he’s putting the responsibility right where it belongs: in the boardroom.

And the idea that Ange never said a word and just got on with the job is laughable. It only seems that way because he ran the system and that’s why it was working. That’s not evidence of patience—it’s evidence of victory.

Ange raised similar concerns all the way through his time at Spurs. That’s what a manager does when he doesn’t feel he’s being properly supported by those over his head, and sees bad things on the horizon if the club can’t sort itself out.

The real problem here is that the media and some elements of the fanbase are obsessed with protecting the board from criticism. So they’ve invented a binary: Rodgers = moaner, disloyal, high-maintenance. Ange = patient, obedient, quiet genius.

It’s rubbish. And it’s dangerous. Because it deflects attention from the real issue—a club structure that still doesn’t move fast enough to back its managers. Both Ange and Rodgers ran into the same brick wall. One was allowed to knock it down. The other is still banging his head against it.

It’s also worth remembering that Rodgers isn’t some reactive hothead. He is always diplomatic. He does play nice. But he’s sounding the alarm. Why? Because we’re days away from Champions League registration, we’re light in key positions, and—most damning of all—we’re once again sitting on a massive transfer surplus.

If this isn’t the time to demand action, then when is?

The fetishisation of “the process” at Celtic has become absurd. The board loves to talk about it—like a mantra that excuses all sloth and delay. But there’s no process worth a damn if it doesn’t back the guy in the dugout.

Ange knew that. That’s why he went public in 2021. It’s why he pushed so hard that summer. It’s why we started to see changes. Some think that when he saw where the process was going – back to dithering, back to delay, run by Mark Lawwell – that’s when he made his decision to bail out. I distrust that theory because Ange has previous for walking out on clubs when a better offer came along, but it’s there in the background just the same.

Rodgers knows what this club needs and he’s trying to stop the rot before it costs us something meaningful—like a Champions League group stage or a league title.

So, let’s drop the childish comparisons. Let’s stop pretending that silence equals wisdom and that complaint equals weakness. Both Ange and Rodgers have told us exactly what they need. Only one of them was properly listened to.

That’s the real difference here. There are people at this club who do not trust the men in the dugout and want all control at the centre. That’s the road to ruin.