The Outrage Over Brendan Rodgers Is Ridiculous And False
It’s never nice to lose a successful manager, especially when that manager has made history at your club and moved down south to a team perceived to be ‘smaller’ than yours. When Alan Stubbs left Hibs for Rotherham after winning the Scottish Cup in 2016 it felt like a bizarre move, and with hindsight he probably (definitely) regrets going to the championship and his subsequent disastrous spell at St Mirren. As a Hibs fan I wasn’t happy to see him go but sometimes you have to accept the reality of the situation.
Celtic fans have been raging away on twitter after the announcement that Rodgers has moved on to Leicester City with the most important chunk of the season still to be completed. They have taken great delight in attempting to cast him aside, now choosing to doubt that his boyhood fandom was even a reality. To be honest, Rodgers is a bit of a liar. In fact that’s an understatement. He’s a massive liar. It feels like he duped quite a lot of people in Scotland, including Celtic fans who thought he would never leave for a ‘wee club like Leicester’. An entire book could be written about his various fibs. In fact, there already is one. It’s called ‘Brendan Rodgers, The Road To Paradise-The Official Autobiography’. Some of his tales have been hilariously David Brent-ish, from the one about Real Madrid trying to sign Charly Musonda after he played against them for Real Betis (no such game existed), to the one about a Rangers fan coming up to his car in a traffic jam in the Clyde tunnel and calling him ‘a breath of fresh air’ instead of hurling sectarian abuse at him. However, despite these lies I can’t help but think the reaction to his new job has been way over the top.
One argument that has popped up over and over again online is that Celtic fans would have let him move on at the end of the season with their best wishes, but the ‘timing’ of his departure is what made it so despicable. However, I can’t help but feel this is nonsense. Even with a new manager in Neil Lennon, this Celtic side is still huge favourites to win the league, and after their victory at Easter Road in the Scottish Cup on Saturday, they still have a great chance to complete the ‘triple treble’. Rodgers has not derailed their season by leaving. There have also been points made about the state of the team after this season, with a lot of loanees going back to their parent clubs, and some (probably deserved) critiscism of the general squad management at Celtic. You mean, Celtic might have to rebuild a bit this summer? Replace a few good players? Spare me the tears. Celtic don’t lose their best players with anywhere near the same frequency as clubs below them in Scotland, evidenced by them being able to keep people like Moussa Dembele and Kieran Tierney for so long. I think its fair to argue that Rodgers has a history of bad signings in his previous jobs, so if anything Celtics poor signing record is down to the club itself giving Rodgers too much control over the players he brought in. If Celtic are run any way approaching competently, they should be able to find decent replacements for the players they will lose this summer, and continue to be the best team in Scotland. Don’t forget, Celtic seemed to be in absolute chaos during last summer’s transfer window, and this season hasn’t turned out too bad. Celtic fans would have been equally outraged if Rodgers had left this summer. I don’t think it would be any different to the situation right now. There would still be cries of betrayal and disloyalty, and fury about abandoning ‘the ten’.
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Celtic fans just have to accept their place in world football unfortunately. Rodgers did do a good job, and he brought a lot of success while also significantly developing young talent, which helped the national team for a while when Scotland built the team around the likes of a resurgent Scott Brown and Leigh Griffiths. Leicester may not be a bigger club than Celtic, but they are a well run, top flight club in England with a really good young squad, players Rodgers can develop, and the potential to be upwardly mobile in the league. Celtic fans may think they are special, but this is what happens to every club in the world except the very biggest in Europe. If your manager does well, then he will move on to a better opportunity. The attempts to remove Rodgers from their history are just silly in my opinion. Celtic were always a vehicle for him to prove himself to clubs in a bigger league, but it was an extremely successful period. Perhaps Celtic fans should accept the reality and his time should be looked upon fondly, rather than blowtorched out of existence like his book was in that twitter video.
