It really was car crash TV as Brendan Rodgers met the media, apparently to preview tonight’s home match against Dundee United.
Brought to you by Celtic Communications Manager, Iain Jamieson.
Later on there was a token question put to the Celtic manager about tonight’s visitors but it was completely incidental, the entire 16 minutes and 42 seconds was simply to stoke division between the manager and the Celtic support, picking up from Sunday’s expected comments.
Rodgers is a skilled media operator, he knows what they are looking for but he isn’t perfect. Yesterday a group that has almost complete hostility to all things Celtic got more juicy detail out of the club than they have managed all season, they barely had to try, no traps were set.
As a football manager his tactics at Ibrox last Thursday were baffling, as were his substitutions. It left a mixture of confusion and anger among the Celtic support.
With the team on course for the SPFL title a win at Ibrox should be one of the highlights, reminding the delusional 50,000 bears that they are a laughing stock as they walk out to Simply The Best and all the other matchday trimmings.
Celtic’s Ibrox performance gave them 60 hours respite from reality, it returned at Easter Road on Sunday.
For reasons best known to himself Rodgers decided to unload a lot of issues at a media conference following the routine win over St Mirren on Sunday. Moving 13 points ahead at the top of the SPFL Premiership took away much of the sting from the Ibrox defeat, it was almost business as normal, in flashes Celtic played well, the win was deserved against a workmanlike side who brought on their new signing from Gateshead, Owen Oseni in the 62nd minute.
What happened afterwards will remain a mystery for some time to come, a lesson on how not to communicate with Jamieson looking on apparently without a care in the world.
First up Rodgers decided to criticise the fans. Around 40,000 Season Ticket holders turned up, ignoring the weather, putting the Ibrox defeat to one side and getting along to watch their team. Rejecting the chance to spend £12.99 for a Celtic TV stream.
As thanks they were heavily criticised by the manager with the added Strachan-like insult of ‘if you know your football’.
You don’t require a UEFA A licence to watch Celtic and comment to friends or groan at the match. The bulk of those attending are in their forties or over, they’ve watched Celtic for a while, they have a grasp of the good and the not so good.
There are a few wild opinions but on the whole it is a fairly civil crowd, they don’t get overly involved or animated either way.
After criticising some groans, not booing, Rodgers decided to link an 89th minute chant for a former player, the last regular to come out of the failing Academy, with criticism of a current player.
To add insult there was a throwaway line that Greg Taylor wasn’t up to Champions League standards, like hundreds of other Celtic players.
After that media performance a skilled or competent Communications Manager would have read the room, the big one in the real world and online, not the excited murmurings of reporters who had struck gold with a solid deflection away from the strife at their favourite club.
Away from another refereeing rant from paranoid Phil Clement.
Not Jamieson. No effort was made to steer the narrative away from Rodgers’ strange multi-angle attack on the hard core Celtic support. Instead, two days later they were all invited back for a follow up!
Early in the ‘Dundee United’ media conference Rodgers could have said that the issues had been discussed at length on Sunday, he was here to discuss the next match. We move on.
Instead Rodgers tried his best to soften his stance but couldn’t resist some fresh jabs at the support. When you are praising the patience of the Swansea support in 2011 on Celtic TV it really is a bit too contrived.
Communications Manager Jamieson showed no interest, it was as if he was passing time before getting back to his favourite message boards.
Rodgers was asked questions about his comments on Sunday and he’s answered them. It’s the sound bites that media live on. He should’ve nipped this in the bud and not escalated it, two days talking about this is nonsense. Let’s all move on
— Tam sellic son (@TamseIIicsonIII) January 7, 2025
SWANSEA:
I have walked in stadiums outwith here where you play passes in the game and the fans will recognise. I remember my time at Swansea where you would make a backward pass because you could not go forward. The crowd could recognise what was happening.
They clap, they square the pass, then you play a forward pass and it changes the point of attack. It is recognising the game and that feels good for the players. They do not see that as a negative, it is to start a new attack.
EVERYTHING THAT I PUT MYSELF THROUGH
I’m experienced enough to say what I think and what I feel, but not in a derogatory way to anyone. Everything that I put myself through to come back here, I’m so, so happy that I came back here. I love my life and love my job here but it’s also important to be able to say what I think.
Sometimes you’re paid not to say what you think, but there are moments when you have to. I’m at the stage now in my career and my life where I don’t need to bite my tongue.
COMING BACK TO WATCH THE NEXT MANAGER
So that’s all I’m here to do, is to manage and be the best that I possibly can be for Celtic in my time here, however long that is. And of course, I will stand up for that.
And then once the time’s done, I can step back, wait for the next manager to come in, support him and look forward to seeing 60 games of high intensity football for 95 minutes every week.
There was also a comment about hoping that Greg Taylor will be at Celtic for as long as he is manager, Taylor is out of contract in the summer with a new deal still to be agreed. In the last 12 months Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alistair Johnston have had their long term Celtic contracts renewed.
In over 20 years as Celtic’s Communications Manager there has never been a suggestion of an English club swooping to take Jamieson’s skillset into the EPL. What he actually brings to the club is hard to define as Celtic’s detractors enjoy open season to attack the club with their special access and other side benefits.
Today around 45,000 print copies of the Daily Record will be sold.
Online it will collect the clicks with Internet Bampots taking a quick look and laugh at the gymnastics they apply to present Celtic as being on the brink of Crisis, helped by the inactions of Celtic’s Communications Manager.
When Brendan Rodgers was introduced as Celtic manager in June 2023 Michael Nicholson said that an ambition was to make Celtic world class in everything that they do.
It is a very short list of areas that meet that criteria, perhaps a look at Communications is still pending in the CEO’s in-box.
Season Ticket renewals are still some way off for entitled fans that don’t know football, they are certainly entitled to see the club portrayed in the best possible light, not to be insulted when four of their 19 SPFL matches fall in a fortnight spell at the coldest time of the year where transport is often restricted.
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Rodgers achieving nothing other than insulting the support now by carrying this on. https://t.co/PWq9ocqRas
— Kieran (@Kieran_Celtic) January 7, 2025
7 Comments
by Dan
Your article is full of negativity relating to Celtic therefore your as bad as the morons asking the questions at the press conference. Brendan would have expected these questions as can be heard in his responses and probably talked this through prior to commencing.
We are top of the league leading by 13 points and you are just another blogger who cant find anything positive to write.
Maybe you have a hankering to join those clowns asking the stupid questions yesterday
by Editor
Hi Dan,
Can you give me three reasons why I would be looking for a job at the Record or Daily Mail?
If you think that all is hunky dory at Celtic I can only suggest keeping to Celtic Quick News for all the latest from the happy clappers and cheerleaders.
Some of us prefer independent thought to GroupThink.
by Legend07
Totally agree I don’t see the lap top loyal get a free for all at the new club but we let them keep coming with negative questions when the topic has already been spoke about at length so they can get more negative headlines.
We are far from being world class the only thing they are top class at is getting money out the faithful.
Try going into the corporate sections at the ground where you get charged a fortune and get a half cooked cold pie and a programme for your cash at half time. The new bar they have at the corner of the jock stein stand is basic and done on the cheap to provide another avenue to rip us off. They advertise it as a great experience at one of the worlds most iconic stadiums. There is no effort put into anything they provide for the fans who are willing to plough there hard earned into the club. So make it a worth while experience and put more effort in. The people running our club are amateurish at best “in everything they do”
by TicToc
Everywhere in your article it just kept going through my mind, where TF is all this negativity coming from and why? And Peter Thomas Lawwell is intrinsically linked to all of it. The PR guy, Jamieson, was he employed by Lawwell to do his bidding?
He’s been there a similar amount of time to Lawwell and if he WASN’T doing Lawwell’s bidding he’d have been ‘resigned’! The negativity (towards Brendan) from that filthy rag the Daily Mail and by Lawwell’s favourite mouthpiece, McGowan, referring to the amount of ‘money’ (in the form of players) on the bench recently. Nicholson saying he wants us “to be world-class in everything we do”, a favourite claim of Lawwell’s inferring we were and a lot of this whilst Lawwell was unappointed Director of Football amongst other things. Dear god, it’s beyond imagination. And of course there was much speculation (smoke and fire and all that) when Brendan left abruptly that there was some bad blood between him and Lawwell. FFS, do I need to spell this out, the part Lawwell’s had in all the negativity but he’s never stood up for Celtic FC at any time or in any meaningful way when referees, the SFA, the SPFL, the SMSM, the whole f***ing lot of our enemies and they ARE enemies have stood together against us.
Don’t fall out with Brendan, SUPPORT him as we SUPPORT our team. His words may have been ill-chosen and ill-timed but we all make mistakes. Anyway it looks like he’s being set up and Lawwell’s not far from any of it.
GET HIM OUT OF CP BY ANY MEANS, FAIR OR FOUL. He’s the enemy within and has been, evidently, for over 15 years.
by Editor
The jobsworth Jambo has been there even longer than Lawwell, his talents and skills are very difficult to identify other than keeping the spotlight away from the failings of the CEO and Chairman.
Without doubt there are elements inside Celtic desperate to undermine Rodgers, what’s Lenny upto these days anyway…
by jim
By miles the best article I have read about this Rodgers nonsense!.
by Gerard
UK residents cannot watch Celtic at home by ppv..Celtic tv is officially broadcast to overseas viewers