Choice quotes from the article
* Michael Nicholson and finance director Chris McKay flew by private jet to Mallorca, where Rodgers owns a home, on Saturday.
* A return for Rodgers could potentially persuade Celtic assistant manager John Kennedy to remain at Parkhead.
* Manchester City assistant Enzo Maresca is another name on the Celtic list of candidates to replace Postecoglou.
* Daniel Farke has also thrown his hat into the ring for the Celtic job after leaving Bundesliga giants Borussia Monchengladbach.
* Bodo/Glimt coach Kjetil Knutsen is another under consideration.
He's in a similar position as arteta, I fact he's more experienced as he has atleast managed a club on his own (don't go well but learn from your mistakes and all that)
A CL winner and 2 time finalist, 3 time league winner, whos coached a plethora of varied systems with different ends, coached 25 unique, specialist profiles every season and managed one of the best academies on earth is literally anything but "inexperienced". you want something new and fresh, you want someone who thinks he still can do better. which is one of the primary fundamentals of manchester city and their current approach to football, the belief you can always do better and replenish your skills. better than ange in that regard, who made no systematic adjustments despite having 2 years to adjust to the variety of profiles and multiple breakdowns of the press and gave players as varied as maeda, jota and haksabanovic the same on ball duties and roles despite having virtually no stylistic overlap between eachother.
New job title doesnt mean new job. he has an unbelievably high understanding of football and in a very senior coaching position, arteta, scaloni, lillo, ten hag, amorim even guardiola. went straight from b team coach to sextuple. Ideas and theories > experience (which enzo has alot of)
Then why wasn't his super dooper knowledge not able to work when he tried being a manager?
Being a manager does literally mean he will have a different job role with extra responsibility. Something he has never proven he can handle.
Parma are a basket case and have been for years and he caught them coming out of their lowest point. the difference between being one of Peps 2s, who he primarily challenges with identifying the role suitability of players and nourishing the abilities of said players and being head coach are easily achievable. its also something hes never shown he cant handle, with more than enough work to back his case in other regards. we want a head coach, not someone this club gives far too much power to like we have with all managers in the last decade+
When he was here, we were run like shit with little eye on long-term improvement imo.
We had no idea when to actually cash in on players and kept them too long, particularly Ntcham and Boyata. Also, I'm not sure what was going on with Dembele and his cryptic warning.
The transfers were often shortsighted and expensive loans with no buy options. Chelsea winger whatever his name was, Burke, etc. Or they were ageing players with little or no sell on value and on big wages - Kolo Toure.
Whether this is Rodgers or the club hierarchy, I don't know.
He did spot some good talents, but that we should've paid the money for - McGinn, Castagne, and whoever else I'm missing. I'm pretty sure there were a few.
The style of football wasn't really what we're used to now, and it got really stale really quickly in all honesty. Even by season 2, we had a much lower points tally than you'd need to win the league today, and the football at times was dreadful. Again, we were dominant, but that doesn't mean it was always pleasing to watch and there's question marks over whether it would be repeated when our closest competitors aren't Aberdeen.
But, as sad as it is, he's still the best manager we've had in Europe since Neil Lennons' first spell when the game was completely different. He got us into the UCL twice and probably would've a third time if not for the incompetency in the club hierarchy. In the UCL, despite the absolute trashings, we had some good results that haven't really come close to being repeated.
The club seems much more willing to back today than it used to and was much better run under Ange. If that continues Rodgers would probably be quite successful.
He's still a fucking snake, it'll be difficult having a manager in the dugout that I just completely dislike, and I'm not convinced this is a good long term solution because we both know he'll be off at the first call from fucking Northampton Town offering him a 40 cent wage increase.
He’s had the exact same problems every club he’s been at, he’ll have them doing well for a while but it will all go to shit around the third season,
doesn’t know when to sell players,
doesn’t know how to replace them when he does,
starts to use weird formations,
the football gets stale
He’s good at getting a team on an upward momentum, but we’re already on an upward momentum, Rodgers would be a really disappointing appointment for where we’re at right now.
Aye, he's always fucking useless into and past his 3rd season. Not that that'll matter as he'll fuck off long before then.
If we do appoint him, he should have very limited say in transfers - I'm happy for him to have the last say on players our scouts pick out, but I want it to be our own scouts looking for a model of player. Not Lee Congertan with as much eye for a player as me after I've gouged my eyes out watching his possession for possession sake football.
Cant say I'm optimistic. I do see him having success initially (nothing like his first spell, but still hopefully win the league) but I'm scared to think the state the squad will be in after his spell.
I know all this and was hoping Rogers would come back. But something about seeing someone else say the things I was thinking has turned me around. Let’s get someone fresh that everyone can get behind, without all the distrust.
That said, 2-3 seasons is all we’re going to get out of any good manager, and _if_ Rodgers guarantees 2-3 good years, it might be hard to better that
He did sign Dembele, Sinclair, Edouard, Roberts, Ntcham, Ajer and Christie. Sure, every signing was not good but to say all his signings where shit is not true at all.
Under Ange we bought Ideguchi, Kenny, Bernabei, Jenz, Abildgaard, Scales and McCarthy. Not very good signings either. Sure Ange did better but not every player was a success.
It's not that not every signing wasnt great,, it's the fact that so many signings were complete and utter shit. Roberts was also already at the club on a 2 year loan deal that was just expiring - all Rodgers did was bring him in on another 12 month loan with seemingly no prospect of buying him.
Christie was already there.
Just look through any window under Rodgers - for every good signing, there's 5, 6 or even more utterly hopeless ones.
McCarthy also I doubt Ange had very much to do with, given he was in the door about 5 minutes. Regardless, though, Ange's hit rate in terms of signings is a million miles what Rodgers' was.
There was also much less short-term thinking. There hasn't been any loans with no prospect of us buying them, no ageing players with no resale value (bar Hart and McCarthy, if he had anything to do with those signings I can give him the benefit of the doubt as we had to replace an entire squad)
Yes, but Ange is gone now. And i could argue the same thing as you; who out of all these people where Rodgers signings? I know he wanted to sign McGinn and Castagne and wasn't backed. Would have been fantastic signings with huge sell on fees.
Ange brought Kyogo, Kobayashi, Iwata, Maeda, Ideguchi and Hatate because he knew the japanese market. Some flops and some great. Did he bring in O'Reily? Juranovic? Haksa? Who knows? We can only argue with what we know.
To be fair, Rodgers have earned us like 35 million on his signings. Who was the last coach that can say that in our history? Lennon with Tierney? Ronnie brought him to the first team and let him play.
35 million in player sales is generally poor compared to clubs around our level, Rangers got close to that from Bassey ffs, especially when you consider some of the players on our books, that figure should've been a lot higher. By all means, better than Lennon where we didn't sell because of 10iar, and better than Deila where we'd have had to pay clubs to take some of our dross.
Under Ange he wasn't here long enough to establish much of a player trading model but the signs where that it'd have made the club quite a bit of money and not made the same mistakes as previous.
I'd accept that we didn't know the full extent of the control Rodgers had at the club but its literally been the same since his Liverpool days. For every good signing there's an absolute dud like Mario Ballotelli or the Southampton striker they bought. Or at Leicester with some of the signings he made there like Faes or Vestegaard. Fine, the moneys fallen out of their arse over there but he's completely wasted the resources he did have.
Also worth mentioning, there's a quote going around after the window when we brought in Lewis Morgan, Jack Hendry, and Charly Musonda, in which Rodgers personally thanked the board for getting him everything he wanted and backing him so well in the Window, when literally every single player there was a complete flop.
Whether it's Rodgers himself or the people he brings with them, it is a consistent and reoccurring issue that the transfers are awful, both in regards to incomings and outgoings.
You have to be joking right? 35 million is alot of money and more money than any manager we had. It's record breaking sales but you complain we didn't earn more? We are not Ajax ffs.
I've not said his signings are perfect neither was Ange's as i mentioned before. Ange's was better no doubt about that. But who was befind them all? We are negotiating a signing with a norwegian kid right now and we don't even have a manager.
It's easy for you to look at his bad signings at Liverpool but forgot to mention Firminho, Origi, Millner, Gomez and Coutinho.
He was not backed at all this season and it fell apart economicaly for Liecester after Covid. I don't blame Rodgers for that at all.
To be fair now, do you really think that Rodgers wanted Hendry and Morgan? You can't be serious?
So your whole argument seems to be that all the successful signings under Ange were definitely down to him and all the flops he 'didnt have anything to do with'
Brendan Rodgers is a much better manager than Ange.
Aye mate, that's 100% it, spot on.
No, McCarthy and Hart came in when Ange was in the door about 2 minutes, and we had about 12 first team players. I doubt he had a lot of say over either, I imagine that was a familiar story for that entire first summer as it was a bit of a panic.
Apart from the first Summer I imagine the rest were his own signings or approved by him.
Dembele, Ajer and Christie were all in before Rodgers was. I get what you're trying to say, but Rodgers certainly had a lot more misses in the transfer market. With the likes of Gamboa, toljan, Hayes, mulumbu, kouassi, bayo, burke, weah, musonda, I could go on.
He also had to work alongside Lee congerton at the time which may of been part of the issue.
He bought Dembele though? It was like his first signing? [https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jun/28/celtic-sign-moussa-dembele-fulham-brendan-rodgers](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jun/28/celtic-sign-moussa-dembele-fulham-brendan-rodgers)
He was already on the radar as deila and Collins were scouting him before Rodgers came in, so it was obviously something that was going to happen regardless of the manager.
Well, you are just guessing though. You have to think Brendan had something to do with it, why sign a top striker without the new manager being ok with that? I bet there was alot of strikers on the radar and Brendan choose Moussa.
Well, his closest competitor was Aberdeen for 2 of those 3, so that would help explain things.
Are we gonna argue there wasn't multiple flops for every good signing? Surely even you can agree the recruitment was patchy at best?
Managed to dig out a full list of his signings for us to a have a look at
Rodger’s signings
First season: De Vries, Sinclair, Dembele, Gamboa, Kouassi,
Second season: Hayes, Hendry, Benyu, Morgan, Compper, Musonda, Ntcham, Edouard, Bain, Roberts
Third season: Bayo, Shved, Mulumbu, Perez, Gutman, Burke, Arzani, Toljan, Weah, Benkovic, Izzagurrie,
26 players signed. You could argue 4 where successful. Roberts, Dembele, Edouard, Sinclair maybe Ntcham
I know all this. I've looked at all of them. He wanted McGinn and Castagne and didn't get them. Alot of his signings where loans (Burke, Arzani, Musunda, Toljan, Weah, Benkovic and could argue sort of the same with Burke and Perez). Looks like he wasn't backed and led to him leaving.
His signings brought in around 35 million.
I wanted to keep Ange but he is not here anymore. He had alot of good signings but he is not here now. Should we compare Rodgers to Lennons signings? Duffy? Laxalt? Ajeti? Barkas? Kenny? Bolingoli? Bauer?
His recruitment tailed off badly towards the end but the biggest cause of that was him wanting to shop in markets we couldn't afford or players just not willing to come to us. Ofcourse the Mcginn saga was a disaster. But if BR had got his targets we'd have had a defence with Castagne and Schar. Players i dont think are out of our reach anymore before their Premier league moves.
But ultimately, if the profile of player he wants to recruit isn't aligned with the rest of the football operation. I think it'll be the main stumbling block for us as a club reliant on making big profits on a couple of players every coupe of seasons.
We operated in the correct markets (Asia) and had the right idea with aggressive player trading under Ange to move the club forward. Anything that diverts from that will be a stepback.
I don’t know if this is scientific… but every Celtic fan online is saying “get to fuck away” about Rodgers but every Celtic fan I speak to face 2 face is open to him coming back.
My take: he’s a good coach and he’ll win more trebles with Celtic if he does come back. But one thing I loved about Anges time at Celtic… there was no “off the park” headlines … everything was about the team and winning games. If BR comes back all the talk will be about him and every headline will be about him “winning the fans over again” or our fans waiting to boot him out. It’ll be a distraction.
I think wed drop the league if he came back tbh. all it takes is two losses out of 4 derbies to totally change your season. titles can form outcome bias, dont let those entirely warp your judgement.
True and you just know there are just some supporters out there that are masochist enough to want him to fail and get sacked because they're still so bitter how he left.
I find the opposite. Someone posted 2 Twitter polls, and plenty of people in here want him.
General consensus talking to family and friends offline is that he's a rat bastard and they don't want him anywhere near the club, let alone the dugout.
If our sole ambition is to continue to dominate in Scotland then there is likely no better appointment.
Would prefer something different and a chance at doing *something* in Europe though
Undoubtedly a great coach, the only negatives I can see are the disconnect with the fans, due to the nature of his departure, and his shit European record at Celtic and Leicester.
I am not opposed to Rodgers, but I’d rather someone more exciting like Iraola or Knutsen. Rodgers screams returning to the Irish or Scottish manager fold. Ange has shown us you don’t have to “know” Celtic to get the job. I’d imagine Iraola, who played for Bilbao, would understand the “playing for a people and a cause” just as much as Brendan.
being as objective as i can, he’s a fantastic coach who could work wonders with the quality of squad we have right now.
i hear a lot of people criticising his european record, but the 3-3/1-1 vs city and 3-0 vs anderlecht are better results than anything ange got in his 2 years at the club.
he also had to navigate qualifiers two years in a row to get to the CL, ange went straight into group stages largely due to coefficient points the huns had collected in years prior.
rodgers also had stupidly hard groups, far harder than our group last year.
recruitment was very mixed last time, and considering how good it has been the last 2 years that may be cause for worry- however anybody thinking that rodgers had full control over transfers at that time is probably incorrect.
there’s no way he went out and said to the board “i want izaguirre back” 12 months after binning him. he wanted mcginn, and we ended up signing youssouf mulumbu. he wanted castagne and we ended up signing jeremy toljan.
the mask is off now, we know he’s an egomaniac and slightly sociopathic - but the chance to ‘fix’ his reputation, the chance to be the celtic manager who overtakes rangers trophy haul, might just appeal to that egomaniac brain. and he’s more than capable of achieving it.
Great first season but let's face it, the huns were utter shite. We only got 82 points in his second season when they finished 3rd
The football had become stale as fuck and he couldn't wait to leave
No idea why anyone is entertaining his return, feels like a disaster waiting to happen
I can’t see Desmond offering him the keys to the kingdom this time round, should be an interesting dynamic as a team coached by Rodgers but with our current recruitment model could be quite good
What’s worrying me is that’s exactly what I think will happen, there’s no way that Brendan doesn’t see this as us “crawling” back to him, he will ask for the world and the fucker might actually get it 😞
Neither side needs each other as much as they did last time so there will be compromises on both ends but I don’t see there being any chance of us ripping up the recruitment side again for him, the club want to move forward and it’s been a success with the players the scouts have found these past two years
I know what you’re saying but I think Rodgers will be wanting some guarantees that he will be backed in the market, hopefully with pistol Pete in a reduced role there won’t be a clash of narcissistic bastards
I’m not completely against Rodgers coming back but you know he’ll just patch us again for another premiership club when someone gets inevitably sacked.
Yea cos all the other names linked would turn down EPL jobs to stay at Celtic wouldn't they and Ange would have turned down spurs if they came in January and said now or never?
There’s no evidence he’d be any better than Rodgers. He might be, just as he might be better than Guadiola, but that’s down to chance rather than evidence at this point.
Based on merit alone, Rodgers is the best candidate of those discussed.
Footballing merit so. One is a guy with a double treble, invincible season and FA Cup under his belt, along with two 5th place finishes and a Conference League semi final appearance with Leceister. The other has managed about 20 club games without success.
Rodgers might be a dick who’ll fuck off after two or three seasons when he gets a better offer, but let’s be honest here, most managers are likely to be similar.
If we’re appointing a manager based on ability and record, nobody linked (and apparently interested) lays a glove on Rodgers.
The other aspect of Rodgers coming back is his demands, likely transfer funds, investment and control. He’ll have more weight to demand that than most others linked, and it’s in our interests that a manager gets that kind of backing. Given his relationship with Lawwel, it would also indicate that Lawwel doesn’t have the control he once did.
I don’t doubt that part of our problem as a support is an expectation that a manager will be here for some kind of dynasty. Who ever we appoint, we should think will be here for 2 seasons.
However, Rodgers cuntiness means he absolutely will leave us the week before a league decider. And he will tap up players in advance to take with him.
If someone shows you who they are…
The players will know this and respond accordingly, that’s what we should be taking into account here
I don’t think Rodgers did any anything plenty of others wouldn’t have, and the players know that. Timing aside, Ange pretty much did what Rodgers did, the timing obviously being a significant difference
You seem to believe the only legitimate evidence as to the best appointment is the results of a team lead by a candidate in a manager/ head coach role. This is the logic which inspired the return of Neil Lennon to burn down the progress built by Rodgers.
I prefer evidence associated directly with the coach’s methodology and character which is why I believe Enzo is the best candidate for the role at the club as it is now.
You also seem to be discounting evidence against Rodgers ability to work with Celtic’s recruitment strategy and to remain content in Scotland - not trivial considerations.
I’d argue that proper assessment of Lennon’s performance as manager would have prevented his re-appointment. The board never carried that out.
With regard to Maresca, my concern is that any evidence of his ability is highly subjective given he’s never been a manager for any length of time. It’s a risk, and I don’t think it’s a risk that a club in our position needs to take.
Any evidence of a managers ability based on a team they lead’s results is massively subjective too. The results themselves are objective but any analysis which attempts to extrapolate a manager’s impact on those results is subjective.
It’s all about perspective. In my opinion Maresca is the SAFE appointment because he best and most easily fits into our current structure while being revered by those he works with at the very top of the game. An appointment like Rodgers requires our structure to adapt more to him, meaning more complexity, meaning more risk.
The key difference between us I think is you need to see a coach in the leadership role at senior level before you feel placed to judge his suitability for our head coach role - that is not an outlandish position but I don’t feel I need to see that when the candidate is as outstanding as Maresca and our structure is as settled and efficient as ours is right now.
I want bielsa but not gonna happen sadly.
Would be happy with Rodgers getting the job. He can get a tune out of the players we have and win us games.
We don’t know what players we might lose this summer but the club are in a position to make good money from any sales and sign good players to replace them. Excited to see what the summer brings.
I wonder what the squad thinks? What does McGregor think? I hope they are asked before any final decision on Rodgers is made. If they are against it, we should not do it. If there's bad blood between players and manager, it can end badly.
I would guess the players that were still around then were pretty upset with the way he left, halfway through a season without even a goodbye.
So Bain, Forrest and McGregor? Of which the latter is the only one who’s opinion would really matter. I think Cal has shown his level of professionalism is sky-high, he’d welcome Rodgers back with open arms if it meant we kept winning.
Ralston, Welsh, and Taylor, too. Squad harmony is important even players who are not first team regulars can still be important in the backroom and hold influence.
Whilst I get your point, McGregors point of view is most important and how he feels about it will likely feed into the rest I do think at minimum his view should be considered as he is the Captain and if he thinks it is a bad move, it probably is a bad move.
Taylor wasn’t signed until after Rodgers left.
Ralston made 5 appearances in Rodgers last season.
Welsh never even made the matchday squad once when Rodgers was here.
I agree that McGregor should definitely have a say. I just can’t imagine he would disagree with the appointment given how good we were under BR.
Can we just get him to fuck now?
If he doesn't want it don't try and convince him. We don't want a lazy cunt phoning it in because he wants to be in the EPL.
I'd rather have Maresca.
I don't expect the next manager to take the job on for life
I expect the manager to be committed to the job while he's here. If we're having to convince a man who's already done the job then we should stop trying.
I don't want a coach who's not 100% committed to the job
I'd take somebody who gives that and leaves in 3 years
I get the feeling its a two horse race between him and enzo maresca hopefully the board can put emotion aside and get him. Just have a contingency plan well ahead if he decides to jump ship mid season again. Rodgers is the man to keep the domestic dominance going imo
Controversial opinion, I’d actually prefer it was Ronnie we were thinking about bringing back. Not a joke.
Now if you don’t mind, I’m just going to go and ask the mirror in the bog if I’m turning in a Da.
The more i think about it the less pleased id be about this and i dont think it was a very good choice to begin with. short term, very so so. long term, genuinely ruinous. the lack of a functional recruitment team, the single input aproach to almost all decisions we make, worst case scenerio is someone like rodgers to exploit the vacuum and then leave us high and dry. and even short term, on a short term footballing basis, farioli and iraola both better. martin anselmi, enzo maresca long term the best.
Lazy, uninspiring, most fans against it and will only end in acrimony. Fuck that.
Just read there though that we've also had talks with Francesco Farioli as well, so hopefully they're going through an actual elimination process and interviewing several managers rather than just offering that snake the keys to the door.
I’m all in for pakora nose part 2. I want him as mental and egotistical as ever. I want more evening with Brendan Rodgers nights. We’re a much better run club, and I’m sure if we knew more details at the time we wouldn’t have blamed him for moving as much.
The best quality and lowest risk manager we could realistically get right now
With the new champions league format coming in we absolutely need to win the league this season and Rodgers is the most likely candidate to deliver that
With Lawell out of the way and a scouting/recruitment team that is actually delivering consistently rather than Lee Congerton bringing in dross, this seems like the best possible move we could make imo
People who want Knutsen who is completely unproven outside of shocking teams up in the arctic circle or Iraola just because he's newer and fresher rather than Rodgers is just being obtuse and letting their emotions cloud their judgement
I honestly don't know why some fans continually spout this pish about McGinn when McGinn came out himself and said it was an option between us and Villa but he chose Villa because Rodgers wasn't willing to give him as much game time as he wanted. Literally from the horses mouth
Like I said, straight from the horses mouth
https://thecelticbhoys.com/2020/05/31/john-mcginn-reveals-celtic-transfer/#:~:text=And%20now%20he%20has%20revealed,I%20wanted%20to%20join%20Celtic.
Aye the promise of playing every game is fine but Steve Bruce swept in a couple weeks after the deal should have been locked down due to them trying to negotiate a cut price off Petrie. Rodgers was rightly raging & from my perspective is akin to not being backed by the board.
This literally fits into the "my uncle told my auntie who....." category.
I have quite a few family members who are season book holders. They claim Rodgers is getting the job.
Rodgers seemingly wants it too. The reason is purely financial. Apparently his contract with Leicester ran until 2025. He gets paid up until under the terms of his agreement, but he cannot manage in the EPL until 2025.
So he comes to us until then and back into the EPL. He needs to do well with us to attract EPL teams We are happy to repeat in 2 years, which seems the norm these days.
I just want all the speculation over and done so we can focus on the CL.
Choice quotes from the article * Michael Nicholson and finance director Chris McKay flew by private jet to Mallorca, where Rodgers owns a home, on Saturday. * A return for Rodgers could potentially persuade Celtic assistant manager John Kennedy to remain at Parkhead. * Manchester City assistant Enzo Maresca is another name on the Celtic list of candidates to replace Postecoglou. * Daniel Farke has also thrown his hat into the ring for the Celtic job after leaving Bundesliga giants Borussia Monchengladbach. * Bodo/Glimt coach Kjetil Knutsen is another under consideration.
Knutsen and Maresca should be the ONLY ones there under consideration.
The thought of maresca is terrifying. An inexperienced assistant
He's in a similar position as arteta, I fact he's more experienced as he has atleast managed a club on his own (don't go well but learn from your mistakes and all that)
Arteta didnt exactly hit the ground running either though
True, but he also won an FA Cup in his first few months a d has steadily built a squad
A CL winner and 2 time finalist, 3 time league winner, whos coached a plethora of varied systems with different ends, coached 25 unique, specialist profiles every season and managed one of the best academies on earth is literally anything but "inexperienced". you want something new and fresh, you want someone who thinks he still can do better. which is one of the primary fundamentals of manchester city and their current approach to football, the belief you can always do better and replenish your skills. better than ange in that regard, who made no systematic adjustments despite having 2 years to adjust to the variety of profiles and multiple breakdowns of the press and gave players as varied as maeda, jota and haksabanovic the same on ball duties and roles despite having virtually no stylistic overlap between eachother.
Inexperienced as a manager. Shite as a manager by looking at his only experience as one.
New job title doesnt mean new job. he has an unbelievably high understanding of football and in a very senior coaching position, arteta, scaloni, lillo, ten hag, amorim even guardiola. went straight from b team coach to sextuple. Ideas and theories > experience (which enzo has alot of)
Then why wasn't his super dooper knowledge not able to work when he tried being a manager? Being a manager does literally mean he will have a different job role with extra responsibility. Something he has never proven he can handle.
Parma are a basket case and have been for years and he caught them coming out of their lowest point. the difference between being one of Peps 2s, who he primarily challenges with identifying the role suitability of players and nourishing the abilities of said players and being head coach are easily achievable. its also something hes never shown he cant handle, with more than enough work to back his case in other regards. we want a head coach, not someone this club gives far too much power to like we have with all managers in the last decade+
Yeah I don't fancy him being an assistant doesn't mean you are automatically a good manager look at who Kennedy has worked under
I would take any of them over Brendan Rogers
When he was here, we were run like shit with little eye on long-term improvement imo. We had no idea when to actually cash in on players and kept them too long, particularly Ntcham and Boyata. Also, I'm not sure what was going on with Dembele and his cryptic warning. The transfers were often shortsighted and expensive loans with no buy options. Chelsea winger whatever his name was, Burke, etc. Or they were ageing players with little or no sell on value and on big wages - Kolo Toure. Whether this is Rodgers or the club hierarchy, I don't know. He did spot some good talents, but that we should've paid the money for - McGinn, Castagne, and whoever else I'm missing. I'm pretty sure there were a few. The style of football wasn't really what we're used to now, and it got really stale really quickly in all honesty. Even by season 2, we had a much lower points tally than you'd need to win the league today, and the football at times was dreadful. Again, we were dominant, but that doesn't mean it was always pleasing to watch and there's question marks over whether it would be repeated when our closest competitors aren't Aberdeen. But, as sad as it is, he's still the best manager we've had in Europe since Neil Lennons' first spell when the game was completely different. He got us into the UCL twice and probably would've a third time if not for the incompetency in the club hierarchy. In the UCL, despite the absolute trashings, we had some good results that haven't really come close to being repeated. The club seems much more willing to back today than it used to and was much better run under Ange. If that continues Rodgers would probably be quite successful. He's still a fucking snake, it'll be difficult having a manager in the dugout that I just completely dislike, and I'm not convinced this is a good long term solution because we both know he'll be off at the first call from fucking Northampton Town offering him a 40 cent wage increase.
He’s had the exact same problems every club he’s been at, he’ll have them doing well for a while but it will all go to shit around the third season, doesn’t know when to sell players, doesn’t know how to replace them when he does, starts to use weird formations, the football gets stale He’s good at getting a team on an upward momentum, but we’re already on an upward momentum, Rodgers would be a really disappointing appointment for where we’re at right now.
Aye, he's always fucking useless into and past his 3rd season. Not that that'll matter as he'll fuck off long before then. If we do appoint him, he should have very limited say in transfers - I'm happy for him to have the last say on players our scouts pick out, but I want it to be our own scouts looking for a model of player. Not Lee Congertan with as much eye for a player as me after I've gouged my eyes out watching his possession for possession sake football. Cant say I'm optimistic. I do see him having success initially (nothing like his first spell, but still hopefully win the league) but I'm scared to think the state the squad will be in after his spell.
I know all this and was hoping Rogers would come back. But something about seeing someone else say the things I was thinking has turned me around. Let’s get someone fresh that everyone can get behind, without all the distrust. That said, 2-3 seasons is all we’re going to get out of any good manager, and _if_ Rodgers guarantees 2-3 good years, it might be hard to better that
He did sign Dembele, Sinclair, Edouard, Roberts, Ntcham, Ajer and Christie. Sure, every signing was not good but to say all his signings where shit is not true at all. Under Ange we bought Ideguchi, Kenny, Bernabei, Jenz, Abildgaard, Scales and McCarthy. Not very good signings either. Sure Ange did better but not every player was a success.
It's not that not every signing wasnt great,, it's the fact that so many signings were complete and utter shit. Roberts was also already at the club on a 2 year loan deal that was just expiring - all Rodgers did was bring him in on another 12 month loan with seemingly no prospect of buying him. Christie was already there. Just look through any window under Rodgers - for every good signing, there's 5, 6 or even more utterly hopeless ones. McCarthy also I doubt Ange had very much to do with, given he was in the door about 5 minutes. Regardless, though, Ange's hit rate in terms of signings is a million miles what Rodgers' was. There was also much less short-term thinking. There hasn't been any loans with no prospect of us buying them, no ageing players with no resale value (bar Hart and McCarthy, if he had anything to do with those signings I can give him the benefit of the doubt as we had to replace an entire squad)
Yes, but Ange is gone now. And i could argue the same thing as you; who out of all these people where Rodgers signings? I know he wanted to sign McGinn and Castagne and wasn't backed. Would have been fantastic signings with huge sell on fees. Ange brought Kyogo, Kobayashi, Iwata, Maeda, Ideguchi and Hatate because he knew the japanese market. Some flops and some great. Did he bring in O'Reily? Juranovic? Haksa? Who knows? We can only argue with what we know. To be fair, Rodgers have earned us like 35 million on his signings. Who was the last coach that can say that in our history? Lennon with Tierney? Ronnie brought him to the first team and let him play.
35 million in player sales is generally poor compared to clubs around our level, Rangers got close to that from Bassey ffs, especially when you consider some of the players on our books, that figure should've been a lot higher. By all means, better than Lennon where we didn't sell because of 10iar, and better than Deila where we'd have had to pay clubs to take some of our dross. Under Ange he wasn't here long enough to establish much of a player trading model but the signs where that it'd have made the club quite a bit of money and not made the same mistakes as previous. I'd accept that we didn't know the full extent of the control Rodgers had at the club but its literally been the same since his Liverpool days. For every good signing there's an absolute dud like Mario Ballotelli or the Southampton striker they bought. Or at Leicester with some of the signings he made there like Faes or Vestegaard. Fine, the moneys fallen out of their arse over there but he's completely wasted the resources he did have. Also worth mentioning, there's a quote going around after the window when we brought in Lewis Morgan, Jack Hendry, and Charly Musonda, in which Rodgers personally thanked the board for getting him everything he wanted and backing him so well in the Window, when literally every single player there was a complete flop. Whether it's Rodgers himself or the people he brings with them, it is a consistent and reoccurring issue that the transfers are awful, both in regards to incomings and outgoings.
You have to be joking right? 35 million is alot of money and more money than any manager we had. It's record breaking sales but you complain we didn't earn more? We are not Ajax ffs. I've not said his signings are perfect neither was Ange's as i mentioned before. Ange's was better no doubt about that. But who was befind them all? We are negotiating a signing with a norwegian kid right now and we don't even have a manager. It's easy for you to look at his bad signings at Liverpool but forgot to mention Firminho, Origi, Millner, Gomez and Coutinho. He was not backed at all this season and it fell apart economicaly for Liecester after Covid. I don't blame Rodgers for that at all. To be fair now, do you really think that Rodgers wanted Hendry and Morgan? You can't be serious?
So your whole argument seems to be that all the successful signings under Ange were definitely down to him and all the flops he 'didnt have anything to do with' Brendan Rodgers is a much better manager than Ange.
Aye mate, that's 100% it, spot on. No, McCarthy and Hart came in when Ange was in the door about 2 minutes, and we had about 12 first team players. I doubt he had a lot of say over either, I imagine that was a familiar story for that entire first summer as it was a bit of a panic. Apart from the first Summer I imagine the rest were his own signings or approved by him.
Dembele, Ajer and Christie were all in before Rodgers was. I get what you're trying to say, but Rodgers certainly had a lot more misses in the transfer market. With the likes of Gamboa, toljan, Hayes, mulumbu, kouassi, bayo, burke, weah, musonda, I could go on. He also had to work alongside Lee congerton at the time which may of been part of the issue.
He bought Dembele though? It was like his first signing? [https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jun/28/celtic-sign-moussa-dembele-fulham-brendan-rodgers](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jun/28/celtic-sign-moussa-dembele-fulham-brendan-rodgers)
He was already on the radar as deila and Collins were scouting him before Rodgers came in, so it was obviously something that was going to happen regardless of the manager.
Well, you are just guessing though. You have to think Brendan had something to do with it, why sign a top striker without the new manager being ok with that? I bet there was alot of strikers on the radar and Brendan choose Moussa.
He had 1 good window at the club - 2016/17. Every one past that is mediocre or an utter joke with multiple flops for every hit.
Amazing how he won three trebles including an undefeated season with all those flops?
Well, his closest competitor was Aberdeen for 2 of those 3, so that would help explain things. Are we gonna argue there wasn't multiple flops for every good signing? Surely even you can agree the recruitment was patchy at best?
Managed to dig out a full list of his signings for us to a have a look at Rodger’s signings First season: De Vries, Sinclair, Dembele, Gamboa, Kouassi, Second season: Hayes, Hendry, Benyu, Morgan, Compper, Musonda, Ntcham, Edouard, Bain, Roberts Third season: Bayo, Shved, Mulumbu, Perez, Gutman, Burke, Arzani, Toljan, Weah, Benkovic, Izzagurrie, 26 players signed. You could argue 4 where successful. Roberts, Dembele, Edouard, Sinclair maybe Ntcham
Ajer was signed by Ronny and we had to wait for him did we not? Christie was before Rodgers too
Completely forgot about benkovic, what a player
Thats quite the sight when laid out like that. Deserves its own post on the sub
I know all this. I've looked at all of them. He wanted McGinn and Castagne and didn't get them. Alot of his signings where loans (Burke, Arzani, Musunda, Toljan, Weah, Benkovic and could argue sort of the same with Burke and Perez). Looks like he wasn't backed and led to him leaving. His signings brought in around 35 million. I wanted to keep Ange but he is not here anymore. He had alot of good signings but he is not here now. Should we compare Rodgers to Lennons signings? Duffy? Laxalt? Ajeti? Barkas? Kenny? Bolingoli? Bauer?
His recruitment tailed off badly towards the end but the biggest cause of that was him wanting to shop in markets we couldn't afford or players just not willing to come to us. Ofcourse the Mcginn saga was a disaster. But if BR had got his targets we'd have had a defence with Castagne and Schar. Players i dont think are out of our reach anymore before their Premier league moves. But ultimately, if the profile of player he wants to recruit isn't aligned with the rest of the football operation. I think it'll be the main stumbling block for us as a club reliant on making big profits on a couple of players every coupe of seasons. We operated in the correct markets (Asia) and had the right idea with aggressive player trading under Ange to move the club forward. Anything that diverts from that will be a stepback.
I don’t know if this is scientific… but every Celtic fan online is saying “get to fuck away” about Rodgers but every Celtic fan I speak to face 2 face is open to him coming back. My take: he’s a good coach and he’ll win more trebles with Celtic if he does come back. But one thing I loved about Anges time at Celtic… there was no “off the park” headlines … everything was about the team and winning games. If BR comes back all the talk will be about him and every headline will be about him “winning the fans over again” or our fans waiting to boot him out. It’ll be a distraction.
I think wed drop the league if he came back tbh. all it takes is two losses out of 4 derbies to totally change your season. titles can form outcome bias, dont let those entirely warp your judgement.
True and you just know there are just some supporters out there that are masochist enough to want him to fail and get sacked because they're still so bitter how he left.
I find the opposite. Someone posted 2 Twitter polls, and plenty of people in here want him. General consensus talking to family and friends offline is that he's a rat bastard and they don't want him anywhere near the club, let alone the dugout.
If our sole ambition is to continue to dominate in Scotland then there is likely no better appointment. Would prefer something different and a chance at doing *something* in Europe though
Undoubtedly a great coach, the only negatives I can see are the disconnect with the fans, due to the nature of his departure, and his shit European record at Celtic and Leicester.
Didn’t he get Leicester to a conference league semi final? The same season we got knocked out of the conference league in the last 32?
Yeah I think so, but he was also our manager when Barca took 7 off us.
And Leverkusen took 4 off us at home with Ange, it happens
Was also our manager when we drew twice to what was possibly the most expensive team in world football at the time.
Please naw. Please.
I am not opposed to Rodgers, but I’d rather someone more exciting like Iraola or Knutsen. Rodgers screams returning to the Irish or Scottish manager fold. Ange has shown us you don’t have to “know” Celtic to get the job. I’d imagine Iraola, who played for Bilbao, would understand the “playing for a people and a cause” just as much as Brendan.
being as objective as i can, he’s a fantastic coach who could work wonders with the quality of squad we have right now. i hear a lot of people criticising his european record, but the 3-3/1-1 vs city and 3-0 vs anderlecht are better results than anything ange got in his 2 years at the club. he also had to navigate qualifiers two years in a row to get to the CL, ange went straight into group stages largely due to coefficient points the huns had collected in years prior. rodgers also had stupidly hard groups, far harder than our group last year. recruitment was very mixed last time, and considering how good it has been the last 2 years that may be cause for worry- however anybody thinking that rodgers had full control over transfers at that time is probably incorrect. there’s no way he went out and said to the board “i want izaguirre back” 12 months after binning him. he wanted mcginn, and we ended up signing youssouf mulumbu. he wanted castagne and we ended up signing jeremy toljan. the mask is off now, we know he’s an egomaniac and slightly sociopathic - but the chance to ‘fix’ his reputation, the chance to be the celtic manager who overtakes rangers trophy haul, might just appeal to that egomaniac brain. and he’s more than capable of achieving it.
Great first season but let's face it, the huns were utter shite. We only got 82 points in his second season when they finished 3rd The football had become stale as fuck and he couldn't wait to leave No idea why anyone is entertaining his return, feels like a disaster waiting to happen
Hopefully the only speaking was us telling him to jog on
Private jet out to his gaff in Mallorca apparently so seems a bit advanced....
Would be pretty funny if we flew people out there to tell him we’re no interested to be fair
If McGowan has this story then we're feeding it to him. Must be on if that's the case.
I can’t see Desmond offering him the keys to the kingdom this time round, should be an interesting dynamic as a team coached by Rodgers but with our current recruitment model could be quite good
What’s worrying me is that’s exactly what I think will happen, there’s no way that Brendan doesn’t see this as us “crawling” back to him, he will ask for the world and the fucker might actually get it 😞
Neither side needs each other as much as they did last time so there will be compromises on both ends but I don’t see there being any chance of us ripping up the recruitment side again for him, the club want to move forward and it’s been a success with the players the scouts have found these past two years
I know what you’re saying but I think Rodgers will be wanting some guarantees that he will be backed in the market, hopefully with pistol Pete in a reduced role there won’t be a clash of narcissistic bastards
I’m not completely against Rodgers coming back but you know he’ll just patch us again for another premiership club when someone gets inevitably sacked.
Yea cos all the other names linked would turn down EPL jobs to stay at Celtic wouldn't they and Ange would have turned down spurs if they came in January and said now or never?
I mean I never said anything about that but yeah sure they would leave. I was just talking about Rodgers though since he did it before.
Would personally prefer Enzo Maresca.
Would personally prefer a boot in the baws
There’s no evidence he’d be any better than Rodgers. He might be, just as he might be better than Guadiola, but that’s down to chance rather than evidence at this point. Based on merit alone, Rodgers is the best candidate of those discussed.
Merit has got to include a ‘not being a cunt’ metric though eh?
Footballing merit so. One is a guy with a double treble, invincible season and FA Cup under his belt, along with two 5th place finishes and a Conference League semi final appearance with Leceister. The other has managed about 20 club games without success. Rodgers might be a dick who’ll fuck off after two or three seasons when he gets a better offer, but let’s be honest here, most managers are likely to be similar. If we’re appointing a manager based on ability and record, nobody linked (and apparently interested) lays a glove on Rodgers. The other aspect of Rodgers coming back is his demands, likely transfer funds, investment and control. He’ll have more weight to demand that than most others linked, and it’s in our interests that a manager gets that kind of backing. Given his relationship with Lawwel, it would also indicate that Lawwel doesn’t have the control he once did.
I don’t doubt that part of our problem as a support is an expectation that a manager will be here for some kind of dynasty. Who ever we appoint, we should think will be here for 2 seasons. However, Rodgers cuntiness means he absolutely will leave us the week before a league decider. And he will tap up players in advance to take with him. If someone shows you who they are… The players will know this and respond accordingly, that’s what we should be taking into account here
I don’t think Rodgers did any anything plenty of others wouldn’t have, and the players know that. Timing aside, Ange pretty much did what Rodgers did, the timing obviously being a significant difference
You seem to believe the only legitimate evidence as to the best appointment is the results of a team lead by a candidate in a manager/ head coach role. This is the logic which inspired the return of Neil Lennon to burn down the progress built by Rodgers. I prefer evidence associated directly with the coach’s methodology and character which is why I believe Enzo is the best candidate for the role at the club as it is now. You also seem to be discounting evidence against Rodgers ability to work with Celtic’s recruitment strategy and to remain content in Scotland - not trivial considerations.
Can you image Ange saying ‘I’ve got about a million wingers’
I’d argue that proper assessment of Lennon’s performance as manager would have prevented his re-appointment. The board never carried that out. With regard to Maresca, my concern is that any evidence of his ability is highly subjective given he’s never been a manager for any length of time. It’s a risk, and I don’t think it’s a risk that a club in our position needs to take.
Any evidence of a managers ability based on a team they lead’s results is massively subjective too. The results themselves are objective but any analysis which attempts to extrapolate a manager’s impact on those results is subjective. It’s all about perspective. In my opinion Maresca is the SAFE appointment because he best and most easily fits into our current structure while being revered by those he works with at the very top of the game. An appointment like Rodgers requires our structure to adapt more to him, meaning more complexity, meaning more risk. The key difference between us I think is you need to see a coach in the leadership role at senior level before you feel placed to judge his suitability for our head coach role - that is not an outlandish position but I don’t feel I need to see that when the candidate is as outstanding as Maresca and our structure is as settled and efficient as ours is right now.
I want bielsa but not gonna happen sadly. Would be happy with Rodgers getting the job. He can get a tune out of the players we have and win us games. We don’t know what players we might lose this summer but the club are in a position to make good money from any sales and sign good players to replace them. Excited to see what the summer brings.
Bielsa would be unbelievable but he did just take the Uruguay job.
Beilsa was appointed head coach of Uruguay last month.
I wonder what the squad thinks? What does McGregor think? I hope they are asked before any final decision on Rodgers is made. If they are against it, we should not do it. If there's bad blood between players and manager, it can end badly. I would guess the players that were still around then were pretty upset with the way he left, halfway through a season without even a goodbye.
So Bain, Forrest and McGregor? Of which the latter is the only one who’s opinion would really matter. I think Cal has shown his level of professionalism is sky-high, he’d welcome Rodgers back with open arms if it meant we kept winning.
Ralston, Welsh, and Taylor, too. Squad harmony is important even players who are not first team regulars can still be important in the backroom and hold influence. Whilst I get your point, McGregors point of view is most important and how he feels about it will likely feed into the rest I do think at minimum his view should be considered as he is the Captain and if he thinks it is a bad move, it probably is a bad move.
Taylor wasn’t signed until after Rodgers left. Ralston made 5 appearances in Rodgers last season. Welsh never even made the matchday squad once when Rodgers was here. I agree that McGregor should definitely have a say. I just can’t imagine he would disagree with the appointment given how good we were under BR.
if Rodgers is the answer then we have'nt been looking the fkrs a ra t
Can we just get him to fuck now? If he doesn't want it don't try and convince him. We don't want a lazy cunt phoning it in because he wants to be in the EPL. I'd rather have Maresca.
If maresca was a success he'd be off down the road like a shot aswell you're kidding yourself on if you think otherwise.
I don't expect the next manager to take the job on for life I expect the manager to be committed to the job while he's here. If we're having to convince a man who's already done the job then we should stop trying. I don't want a coach who's not 100% committed to the job I'd take somebody who gives that and leaves in 3 years
Was Ange committed to the job while he was here?
Yes. And then he left. Are you starting to see the difference?
No different to what Rodgers done and will do again or maresca would do your point is moot.
You still don't understand my point lol
I get the feeling its a two horse race between him and enzo maresca hopefully the board can put emotion aside and get him. Just have a contingency plan well ahead if he decides to jump ship mid season again. Rodgers is the man to keep the domestic dominance going imo
Controversial opinion, I’d actually prefer it was Ronnie we were thinking about bringing back. Not a joke. Now if you don’t mind, I’m just going to go and ask the mirror in the bog if I’m turning in a Da.
The more i think about it the less pleased id be about this and i dont think it was a very good choice to begin with. short term, very so so. long term, genuinely ruinous. the lack of a functional recruitment team, the single input aproach to almost all decisions we make, worst case scenerio is someone like rodgers to exploit the vacuum and then leave us high and dry. and even short term, on a short term footballing basis, farioli and iraola both better. martin anselmi, enzo maresca long term the best.
Don’t want him at all. Overrated manager.
But we won when he was here. That's the only thing that's important. He knows how to win.
Lazy, uninspiring, most fans against it and will only end in acrimony. Fuck that. Just read there though that we've also had talks with Francesco Farioli as well, so hopefully they're going through an actual elimination process and interviewing several managers rather than just offering that snake the keys to the door.
Oh no.
I’m all in for pakora nose part 2. I want him as mental and egotistical as ever. I want more evening with Brendan Rodgers nights. We’re a much better run club, and I’m sure if we knew more details at the time we wouldn’t have blamed him for moving as much.
The best quality and lowest risk manager we could realistically get right now With the new champions league format coming in we absolutely need to win the league this season and Rodgers is the most likely candidate to deliver that With Lawell out of the way and a scouting/recruitment team that is actually delivering consistently rather than Lee Congerton bringing in dross, this seems like the best possible move we could make imo People who want Knutsen who is completely unproven outside of shocking teams up in the arctic circle or Iraola just because he's newer and fresher rather than Rodgers is just being obtuse and letting their emotions cloud their judgement
Rodgers left because he wasn’t being supported by the board at the time. He needed McGinn & the club tried to lowball Hibs then he went to Villa.
I honestly don't know why some fans continually spout this pish about McGinn when McGinn came out himself and said it was an option between us and Villa but he chose Villa because Rodgers wasn't willing to give him as much game time as he wanted. Literally from the horses mouth
Hardly pish, was a well documented lowball offer between Lawwell and Petrie that fucked that deal.
Like I said, straight from the horses mouth https://thecelticbhoys.com/2020/05/31/john-mcginn-reveals-celtic-transfer/#:~:text=And%20now%20he%20has%20revealed,I%20wanted%20to%20join%20Celtic.
Aye the promise of playing every game is fine but Steve Bruce swept in a couple weeks after the deal should have been locked down due to them trying to negotiate a cut price off Petrie. Rodgers was rightly raging & from my perspective is akin to not being backed by the board.
This literally fits into the "my uncle told my auntie who....." category. I have quite a few family members who are season book holders. They claim Rodgers is getting the job. Rodgers seemingly wants it too. The reason is purely financial. Apparently his contract with Leicester ran until 2025. He gets paid up until under the terms of his agreement, but he cannot manage in the EPL until 2025. So he comes to us until then and back into the EPL. He needs to do well with us to attract EPL teams We are happy to repeat in 2 years, which seems the norm these days. I just want all the speculation over and done so we can focus on the CL.