Keith Jackson of the Daily Record has offered his coaching expertise to Brendan Rodgers on the back of Celtic’s 7-1 defeat from Borussia Dortmund.
At one time the veteran Record reporter was a promising teenage midfielder with Rangers Boys Club but football’s loss was the media’s gain with Jackson sharing his insight on the game alongside breathtaking exclusives with Record readers for almost 30 years.
As well as reporting on the business brilliance of Dave Murray it was Jackson that uncovered the billionaire status of Craig Whyte who rolled a pound coin to Murray in May 2011 to buy a Scottish institution.
Celtic’s defeat to Dortmund has created a lot of crocodile tears in media circles, the reality is that the Group Chat’s were buzzing on Tuesday night celebrating each Dortmund goal and the discomfort of Rodgers on the sidelines.
Celtic fans were concerned by the defeat and the way that their side played however the answers and solutions won’t come from Record reporters or anyone else in the Scottish media.
A different approach and very different outcome is expected away to Atalanta with fans expecting a platform to take further points to build on the performance against Slovan Bratislava.
This morning coaching expert Jackson tells Daily Record readers:
Hands up those of us who have coached a team or played a game in the Champions League.
No me neither. So, give or take a few, that makes just about all of us. And, yet according to the Brendan Rodgers bible, the views and opinions of this, the overwhelming majority, ought to be placed in the file marked ‘completely and utterly irrelevant’. Unless, of course, they happen to agree with him.
There are times when it does feel as if Rodgers labours under his very own Messiah complex and that he’s on some sort of mission to educate and enlighten the mere mortals with whom he happens to come into contact whilst carrying out his missionary work. Which, of course, is very kind of him.
In February Rodgers treated newspaper reporters to an off the record explanation about the way his side was playing and how it compared with the style under Ange Postecoglou.
A few days later Jackson decided to share the details from that off the record briefing with the Record’s diminishing Army of Readers.
As a result of that Rodgers pulled the plug on holding seperate media conferences for daily and Sunday newspapers, a very long standing tradition and favour which Jackson abused.
Since then newspaper reporters have had to join in with the all-in/broadcast media conference, any news line to emerge is then shown on You Tube to deny newspapers any impact with their 10.30pm embargo.
In the Record Jackson continued:
But it’s not an act of blasphemy to say he’s just plain wrong when it comes to his continued attempts at cracking the Champions League code. Rodgers appears to be spreading the word or at least promoting the notion that some sort of miracle is what is really required in order for his side to avoid having its pants pulled down and routinely ridiculed in the big boys’ playground of the European game.
And so, even though Celtic got safely back down the road from the Highlands yesterday after rattling off a seventh straight domestic top flight win – coming from behind and eventually overwhelming Ross County- Celtic’s manager may have made the long trip south with some serious food for thought.
Winning at Ross County isn’t for everyone, in April a tearful Proper Football Manager rushed to the dressing room after his side were beaten by the Dingwall outfit, as ever Google is your friend on that one.
Rodgers learns from every match, not from the wise words of Jackson and his chums who have barely had a moment to celebrate in the last six months as Rodgers strengthened his dominance over the troubled Ibrox Tribute Act.
While Jackson explains how Rodgers improves his performances in Europe it is unlikely that Rodgers will be lecturing on how to stem the steep decline in newspaper sales with the Daily Record shifting less than 50,000 copies per day.
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