After five months of being incredibly diplomatic a new side of Brendan Rodgers emerged following today’s 3-1 victory over St Johnstone.
The Celtic boss is usually upbeat and diplomatic, finding positives wherever available and gently deflecting away from loaded questions aimed at criticising his players or match officials.
Despite Celtic’s healthy lead at the top of the SPFL Premiership it hasn’t been difficult to find criticism of the club, the players and management.
Compared to Rodgers I and two seasons of Angeball the current edition of Celtic has been very passive and almost neutered as highlighted by last week’s 1-1 draw at home to Motherwell despite having 80% possession.
Today’s first half performance was very similar except that the hoops found themselves trailing 1-0 at the break with no sign of half time sympathy coming from their manager.
Yang Hyun-jun was substituted by Mikey Johnston but judging by the tone Rodgers used in his post match interview there were plenty of other candidates for the half time hook.
“It’s ambition. Some players want to be too comfortable and just do enough. It’s not enough at this club.” ❌
Brendan Rodgers was NOT happy with Celtic’s first half performance 🎙️ pic.twitter.com/2em1FIkrWP
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) December 3, 2023
It was a really good reaction in the second half. It’s probably the angriest I’ve ever been at half time in my career as a manager.
The first half, the intent, we were too comfortable and nowhere near it. The second half was what I would expect. There was a much better energy and tempo to the game.
Callum McGregor was absolutely brilliant in the second half and his goal, which looked like it was coming, sparked the reaction.
It’s ambition. Some players just want to be too comfortable and just do enough, it’s not enough at this club. You have to have that mentality and intensity from that first whistle but the reaction was really good.
We just can’t drop at this club. The standards are very high and have been set over many years.
Given an opt out on the St Johnstone goal over a possible foul on Joe Hart, Rodgers was buying that excuse:
There was no foul. Have to have been stronger in that moment, we were soft. It’s a great ball in by Carey, it’s a corner we’d looked at working, but we got nowhere near that aggression. It was a great ball in, they surround the keeper and then we don’t defend it.
🍀 Celtic scored three great goals in 26 minutes to come from behind and beat St Johnstone in the #cinchPrem ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/zbBe13NXAt
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) December 3, 2023
