Brendan Rodgers has delivered an incredible message of defiance following Celtic’s 2-0 Scottish Cup win away to St Mirren.
Managers like to shut themselves off away from outside influences but it is clear that the negativity surrounding Celtic has got through to the manager.
After back-to-back defeats from Kilmarnock and Hearts it looked like things had been turned around by winning the Glasgow Derby before a 3-0 win away to St Mirren before the winter break.
Drawing 1-1 at Aberdeen leaves the door open for Celtic to be pushed into second place in midweek leaving the SPFL title race as a 13 match shoot out including two Glasgow Derbies.
Across social media there has been widespread concerns aired by Celtic fans about the way the season is developing with strong criticism of Rodgers and unfavourable comparisons made to his first stint in charge of the club.
Following three difficult away matches in the space of nine days Rodgers has a little breathing space to assess is squad which includes two January signings and the return of three players from the Asian Cup plus the injured Reo Hatate.
Today’s win earned Celtic a quarter-final tie at home to St Mirren with The Sun reporting Rodgers’ defiant post-match comments:
I don’t think it’s a crisis. It’s obviously a narrative that’s been created outside but I don’t expect anything less to be honest. We just focus on ourselves. We are a winning club.
When you’ve won consistently over a number of years, people will look to jump on you and bring you down –and bring me down. I am here to win. For sure we will have our day, and have many days going forward.
We’ll get our influential players back and the squad will be very strong to the end of the season. We’ll continue to fight.
We just have to prove a point to ourselves and our supporters. I think that’s always the best attitude.
We are compared to the squad of last season but one, it’s not the same squad as last season, and two, a lot of these players who were starting last season have not been playing all of this season.
We’ve missed some important players for long periods and we made some changes in the summer.
This is a young group of players here who are giving everything, who are looking to develop and improve.
I said to the players afterwards that I had great pride in them today. It’s a very young team when you take out Joe Hart and Callum McGregor, a very inexperienced group but how they are reacting and sticking together is very important. There’s a lot of noise around but we continue to win football matches.
After those comments there will be an increased expectations on Rodgers and his players to deliver success in the form of trophies this season.
Before the split Celtic have to travel to Tynecastle and Ibrox, positive results in those two matches would put the hoops in the driving seat towards the title with home matches against those clubs to follow.
Adam Idah’s arrival has given Rodgers an extra attacking weapon, with his physical approach defenders have a different issue to deal with while Kyogo Furuhashi is given support and extra space to operate in.
In defence there was the makings of a new partnership between Liam Scales and Stephen Welsh while the back up full-backs of Tony Ralston and Alexandro Bernabei both stood up to the tests of a home side eager to attack and test them.
After allowing an eight point lead to be wiped out the pressure is all on Celtic over the coming weeks but judging by the bullish comments of Rodgers it is a challenge that the manager is ready to tackle head on.
CLICK HERE for Rodgers Transfermarkt profile and record.
CLICK HERE for Sutton baffled by Kyogo treatment.
1 Comment
by Jimmy McGregor
If he’s looking for credit from msm up here he’s going to wait a long time. All I want to see from him is an improvement in team selection and tactics before its too late