During two stints in charge of Celtic Brendan Rodgers has very rarely questioned the Scottish football authorities despite having enough no shortage of ammunition.
During his first season in charge he watched Bobby Madden refuse to award a late penalty against Clint Hill after he wiped out Leigh Griffiths which followed brutal and unpunished attacks on Stuart Armstrong and Patrick Roberts by Kenny Miller and Jason Holt.
When Don Robertson awarded Ross County an outrageous penalty kick to equalise late on at Dingwall the hoops boss was incredibly measured in his suggestions for Robertson to improve his performances.
Even the John Beaton masterclass in a defeat at Ibrox in December 2018 barely brought a murmur of criticism although social media forced Peter Lawwell into a belated statement that was promptly ignored by the SFA as he was reminded of his actions in July 2012.
Second time around there was no criticism of Alan Muir as he laughed and joked with Derek McInnes at Rugby Park after Celtic lost 1-0 to Kilmarnock in the Viaplay Cup with the goal coming with the hoops down to 10 men after an X-rated attack on Greg Taylor.
Strangely something clicked today with Rodgers coming out with a fact that barely any Celtic fan was aware of.
There are plenty of questions that could be asked about the current fixture imbalance, why Celtic’s trip to Tynecastle was put back a day to limit Champions League preparations or four home matches in the first 10 games including trips to the sides that finished second, third, fourth and fifth last season.
But no.
Instead Rodgers revealed that in each of the last seven seasons Celtic’s first match after Christmas Day has been away from home!
It is a very minor issue, it is hard to put it down to the ‘random fixture computer’ but a lesser issue than the many in Scottish football under the watch of Neil Doncaster and Ian Maxwell.
With all respect it is a helluva stretch to imagine that Rodgers uncover that anomaly on his own, thinking back to Dens Park in 2017 when Johnny Hayes picked up a bad injury.
It was the final question at today’s media conference, the re-arranged Dundee match was only announced at 12.05 by the SPFL but at 1.30pm after completing training Rodgers was armed with an unexpected attack on the SPFL fixture managers.
1st game after Xmas:
Celtic
2017: Dundee (a)
2018: Aberdeen (a)
2019: St Mirren (a)
2020: Hamilton (a)
2021: St J (a)
2022: Hibs (a)
2023: Dundee (a)Rangers
2017: M’well (h)
2018: Hibs (h)
2019: Killie (h)
2020: Hibs (h)
2021: St Mirren (h)
2022: M’well (h)
2023: R County (h) https://t.co/OoKZeRruVH— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) October 27, 2023
11 minutes 30 seconds
You may not have had much time to think about this but your festive game has been changed to Boxing Day from December 27th. Is that an issue for the supporters who now have to travel up to Dundee on Boxing Day?
I just saw that. It is not ideal and we would have preferred it to stay as it was, especially at that time of the year. It is interesting and I am pretty sure I am correct in this but for the last seven years Celtic have been away at that period of the season. So, either Celtic are very, very unlucky to be drawn away or someone is making tricks behind the scenes. Seven years on the spin this club has been drawn away at that time of the season. Now that’s not right for supporters. Hopefully, they can maybe look at that going forward.
