Chris Sutton has put the blame for Celtic’s title collapse at the feet of Brendan Rodgers.
At the end of Saturday’s home draw with Kilmarnock many fans chanted ‘Sack The Board’ ahead of the club announcing their Interim Accounts to December 31 which is expected to record close to £100m sitting in the bank.
On the pitch the team is almost unrecognisable from a year ago with none of the 12 signings made this season (nine permanent and three loans) improving the Starting XI.
Rodgers held extensive talks with Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay before agreeing to return as manager but the set up geared towards improving in Europe hasn’t happened with Celtic now in second place and dropping points regularly.
Despite the supposed boost of winning the latest Glasgow Derby Celtic have lost 10 points since the start of December with authoritative, convincing performances a rarity.
The January Transfer Window was an opportunity to change that but signing another winger and a striker on loan from Norwich City in the closing hour of business hasn’t resulted in any improvement.
Sutton has watched the season unfold in the spotlight with Sky Sports, rather than gloss over things and enthuse over a ‘title race’ he delivered some uncomfortable truths for Rodgers:
My thoughts on Celtic at the moment 👇 https://t.co/ekukdpBaYJ
— Chris Sutton (@chris_sutton73) February 18, 2024
Let’s get it right – the result didn’t come as a great shock. Celtic have been bang average all season. I know Brendan was talking about the recent form and winning eight of the last nine.
The wins have papered over the cracks really. Performances haven’t been there. Celtic aren’t kidding anyone – they aren’t a good team this season. Everyone talks about stuff about the board and signings and this moment being a long time in the making. But Brendan Rodgers has to take responsibility. I can’t think of one player this season at Celtic who he has improved and that’s on the manager.
Sutton added:
You look at the points Celtic have dropped domestically. Forget about the Champions League campaign which was a disaster. If you just look at Celtic domestically in isolation, they have been poor. I can’t remember the last time a Celtic team were outplayed in halves of football by so many teams as they have been this season. And that’s on Brendan.
Why is that? We’ve touched on the wide players. It was fast and furious under Ange Postecolgou. The brand of football they are playing is slow and predictable. There isn’t a fear factor at this moment in time. Teams fancy getting a result against them so the Kilmarnock result wasn’t a great surprise to anyone and that’s it.
The pace and power that Rodgers has been talking about is largely absent from Celtic’s play this season, in it’s place they have been pedestrian and predictable.
Next up for Celtic is a trip to Motherwell on Sunday, a match that they could kick-off trailing the SPFL leaders by five points.
With Sutton and Sky Sports on the scene the pressure is ranking up on the Celtic boss who’ll be interviewed by Sky in the build up to the match and also shortly before kick-off.
CLICK HERE for Rodgers completely dismisses media opinion and narrative.
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