Brendan Rodgers has never been in a stronger, or weaker position.
Celtic have performed horrifically in the summer transfer market, worse than in the summer of 2023, worse than in 2018.
Both of those windows revolved around players not being signed, for example John McGinn. Holes left in the squad.
This time around, as well as failing to make any real effort to bring in players the club has actively undermined the manager by selling players off. This year three of the four top scorers from last season have been sold, replaced by Shin Yamada and Callum Osmond.
Yamada had scored twice in 21 J-League matches this season, Osmond hasn’t played a minute of competitive football in his career.
Some view it as an act of sabotage but how does the Celtic manager regard see the transfer activity of the last three months on top of the sale of Kyogo Furuhashi? in-between Champions League matches in January.
Will Rodgers call it out for the shambles that it is or will he bow his head and shower praise on the decision makers that have seriously weakened his squad while the club is sitting on their highest ever bank balance.
The choice is yours Brendan.
On Friday, three days after being embarrassed by Kairat Almaty, the day after the Celtic Chairman attended the draw for the Champions League as a spectator, Rodgers had to face the media to preview the Glasgow Derby.
Sunday’s match was an after thought, transfer related questions dominated, after sharing some of his frustrations Rodgers back-tracked incredibly with a cringe-worthy salute to the decision makers that have been weakening his team since the turn of the year.
Rodgers said:
We have a major owner in Dermot who is a super intelligent guy, we have a board of directors who bleed Celtic and want the club to do well, so everyone here is connected.
I sometimes hear stuff about there being a disconnect, and that couldn’t be further from the truth, for me, the board and Dermot, we all love Celtic and want the club to be the very best it can be, there is a business model that works so well and I just want to ensure the football model works equally as well, so that it is fluent, agile and we keep ahead of the game.
If there is no disconnect then Rodgers is comfortable with the strategy of selling three key goal-scorers over an eight month period without bringing in comparable replacements.
Two of the directors who apparently bleed for the club couldn’t be bothered with going to Ibrox to watch the team in their biggest domestic match of the season, with prime padded seats, prawn sandwiches and warm handshakes from their business partners in the home Directors Room.
Rodgers was given the backing of the vast majority of fans when he returned in June 2023, they recognised that there had been faults on both sides in 2018/19, that circumstances had pushed him in a certain direction.
His timing was poor.
Those fans knew that from the limited contacts book of the Celtic board Rodgers was the manager most likely to sustain and build on the success created from scratch by Ange Postecoglou.
His return gave supporters hope that the workings of the club were now unrecognisable from four years earlier when he left.
Those hopes have been dashed, Celtic are back in the position that they were in previously, where one man wants to retain complete power even if that impacts negatively on the team on the park.
No-one knows that environment better than Rodgers, he has suffered and endured it for more than two years.
If he wants to play the martyr that is up to him but if he wishes to retain credibility and respect across the Celtic support he needs to disassociate from those ‘that bleed Celtic’, the super intelligent guy and tell the fans why the team has been deliberately weakened this year.
Anything less and Rodgers is just another employee, a company man that toes the party line.
The Celtic boss has the best part of a fortnight to think over his response, he won’t be required for media duty until September 12, ahead of Celtic’s trip to Kilmarnock.
How his players are following the international break won’t be of any interest, the only topic worth discussing is how the Celtic manager feels about a transfer window that has seriously reduced his chances of success while adding another £20m to the bulging bank balance.
Then the fans will know the calibre of their manager.
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