Brendan Rodgers has delivered a devastating verdict on the Scottish media by telling them he couldn’t care less about their interpretations of how Celtic are performing.
A generation ago managers would often claim that they didn’t read or bother with newspapers while generally being fully aware of how their club is being reported.
These days social media, radio phone-ins and rolling news channels have a craving for constant news and opinions to fill air time as well as column inches.
Celtic’s back-to-back defeats to Kilmarnock and Hearts provoked criticism and concern from supporters, nine matches on that narrative is still being followed by most media outlets even though Celtic have won eight of those nine matches including a Derby fixture against their nearest challengers.
After mentioning the narrative around the club following the Scottish Cup win over St Mirren there was follow up on that issue at today’s broadcast media conference.
Rodgers does acknowledge the way Celtic is being presented but seemed surprised when he was asked for a reaction by Mark Benstead of Sky Sports.
He couldn’t have been any clearer that media opinions isn’t an issue that causes him to stop in hi tracks let alone lose sleep over.
3 minutes
You spoke last weekend about a narrative being built around the club, outwith the club, what narrative do you think has been built up? What do you think is the perception of Celtic this season?
To be fair, I don’t care. My focus is with the team. I understand and I get the feeling that you have to create that. I understand this city in that the two teams cannot be doing well. When I was at Liverpool, both Everton and Liverpool could be doing well at the same time. That can’t happen here. One has to be pushed down.
For us, it is us because we are at the top. We slipped up in early December but that narrative has continued right the way through even though the players have won eight games out of nine. They have won some tough games and drawn one game. I can’t control that.
What I can control is the mindset of the team, the attitude of the team and knowing that over this next period of games, we will be really focused and really aggressive and attack the game. What everyone else says or writes, I couldn’t care less.
A common media follow up to that reaction is that the manager is trying to adopt a siege mentality.
Simply looking at the quotes may lead to that impression but from his body language it couldn’t be any clearer that influencing the media isn’t a topic that Rodgers will be exploring.
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