UNLESS you have been cursed with a single digit IQ, I think it’s fair to presume Brendan Rodgers will be in charge at Celtic next season.
I am not a gambling man, but I would put the house and the family cat on the Irishman sticking around for at least another year.
All the inane and constant chatter that Rodgers may walk away before he sees through the final 12 months of the three-year contract he signed in June 2023 is just senseless drivel.
You have to shake your head at “informed” sources assuring us the manager may take a hike if the Celtic board fail to match his ambition and provide a massive transfer war chest during the summer.
SMILES BETTER…Brendan Rodgers is a happy Bhoy.
Please don’t mention John McGinn and the non-arrival of the-then Hibs player back in 2018. According to those infernal “in-the-know” reporters, the manager spat out the dummy leading to an irretrievable breakdown between him and the board.
Absolute guff. Rodgers could not offer the Glaswegian a guaranteed first-team place at the champions. He already had Scott Brown and Callum McGregor occupying the two main midfield berths and, good player though he was, McGinn was 23 at the time and had made only two appearances in competitive games for Scotland.
At the same time, Brown, the club captain, and McGregor, vice-captain, were regulars on the international circuit. Only the school dunce would even consider dropping one of his pivotal players for an admittedly promising, but still basically untried, eager wannabe.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, this daft tale continues to resurface with such monotonous regularity that my ears are beginning to bleed.
And that leads us to the transfer funds story we will probably have to suffer all the way to deadline day on September 1.
We are being informed so much will depend on just how much the board will entrust their manager to spend in the market place.
Utter nonsense on two fronts.
1: The Hoops hierarchy WILL make funds available as the team chief sets about strengthening his squad for the challenges and rigours of the new season.
2: Rodgers realises his credibility will plunge through the earth’s core if he stages a second walk-out at the club. And he knows there will be no coming back this time.
ONE MAN AND HIS TROPHY…Brendan Rodgers walks off the Hampden pitch as he safely holds onto the newly-won Premier Sports League Cup in December last year.
He performed a startling vanishing act in February 2019 after originally arriving in May 2016 and his attempts at an explanation for his quickfire departure cut no ice with a lot of folk, including the Celtic support.
I was told many of his Irish relatives were not best pleased with Rodgers’ decision to vamoose to the Midlands. Good grief, even Jose Mourinho stated Rodgers had been wrong to leave at such a pivotal part of the season with Celtic only 14 games away from a historic treble treble.
These were the days when anything uttered by the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ carried some significance.
As for being allowed to run amok with the company’s finances, Rodgers has said: “There will always be a ceiling, I respect that. It’s not an open cheque book, but I feel the board will always do everything they possibly can to get the right type of players in that we want.”
Those words were recorded in April 2017 – eight years ago.
Mind you, that was around the time Rodgers penned a four-year extension on his existing contract.
Folk who are prattling on about the manager showing loyalty to the club and prolonging the deal he signed back in June 2023 should remember that.
A famous Hollywood mogul once said: “A verbal contract ain’t worth the paper it ain’t written on.”
You could probably make the same observation with written contracts in football. They don’t mean a damn.
If a manager – or a player, for that matter – wants to go then you can be as sure as “eggs is eggs” – another interesting Americanism – that he will skedaddle whenever he thinks the time is right.
Peter Lawwell, the club’s chief executive at the time, accurately read the signals when he put Rodgers on an extended deal within 12 months of the Irishman replacing Ronny Deila.
SIGN HERE…Brendan Rodgers pens a four-year extension to his contract in April 2017 under the watchful eye of chief executive Peter Lawwell.
When that contract was broken, Leicester City were forced to pay Celtic £6million in compensation for the manager and another £3million for three of his backroom staff.
And all ended well when Neil Lennon returned in an interim capacity to guide the team to the finishing line and the historic treble treble was achieved.
And here we are today, dear reader. Rodgers is now 52 and we are all a little bit older and, hopefully, wiser as Celtic stand on the cusp of a ninth treble.
Please let’s ignore all speculation – informed or otherwise – about where the manager will be in a few months’ time.
He will be at Celtic – unless, of course, he is “emptied”. That was the very word Rodgers used on the day of his return.
The chances of that are slim and none and, as they say in tinsel town, slim just left town.
ALEX GORDON
