Hung out to dry- Rodgers back in the spotlight as the suits hide from responsibility

The weekly media conference for Brendan Rodgers to preview the weekend match is rapidly turning into car crash viewing for Celtic fans.

A manager who has delivered success on the pitch, profits in the balance sheet and pushed turnover towards £150m is clearly being hung out to dry by those inside the club that are counting down the days till his three year contract expires.

Rodgers has been too demanding of them, not for himself but for the club.

He wants better players in his team, to improve the squad to ensure that Celtic are regulars in the Champions League, capable of reaching the last 24 or pushing on into the knock-out stages when circumstances are favourable.

That would require a professionally run club where everyone is employed on merit with a track record of delivering success.

Outside of Rodgers no-one at Celtic fits that criteria. Every area of the club is occupied by former players that haven’t achieved anything elsewhere, relatives of former managers or directors and associated hangers-on that wouldn’t get near an equivalent job elsewhere.

In the mid-nineties Tommy Burns was trying to get the board to push towards signing players costing around £2-3m he got his way with Alan Stubbs and Andy Thom.

Martin O’Neill got the boat pushed out to sign Chris Sutton, John Hartson and Neil Lennon for a combined £18m over a 12 month spell.

This summer Celtic have spent a total of £3m on Ben Nygren, Shin Yamada and Hayato Inamura while bringing in around £23m in fees for Nicolas Kuhn, Gus Lagerbielke and the sell-on clause from Jeremie Frimpong’s move from Bayer Leverkusen.

With £80m in the bank going into the transfer window finances have never been rosier but it seems that the board only want to increase the Bank Balance while giving the recruitment team loose change to try and sign up some projects and punts.

Some see it as managed decline, others as an attempt to make the manager feel disillusioned and unwanted.

1 minutes 10 seconds:

Asked if there anything new to report on players arriving or leaving Rodgers said

I’ve got nothing new for you, no. It’s very clear what we need to improve, and a lot of work is going on clearly by ourselves and probably every club. That’s the reality of this time of the year, there’s a lot of work going on throughout many clubs.

I know the work that Paul [Tisdale] and his staff are putting in. So yeah, we’re hoping that we can conclude some deals and improve the squad.

As a football club, we will want to have the best available squad that we can to get through the season. I mentioned it before, I think a manager always wants it now, you know, to prepare the team as early as you can. But we know the window shuts by the end of August and hopefully by then everything is in place, we’re all stable and then ready to go.

QUESTION: I think that a lot of fans are asking why deals haven’t been concluded, especially for wingers and in the attacking areas. Is that a complicated answer, are many things needed?

I just think that obviously there’s many things that go into it. I don’t do the deals, so I can’t answer that for you, but I know that behind the scenes, obviously, there’s a lot of work, there’s a lot of discussions that go on to conclude deals.

I’m hopeful that come the end of this window, we will have those deals concluded and we get the players in that can help us go forward. I think the focus now at this moment for myself is to really make sure that the players that are here are in the best possible condition, best mindset to play the games and and that that’s where we’re at at this very moment.

Asked if he expected deals to be completed in time to play in the August 20 Champions League Play Off, Rodgers said:

I really don’t know. That’s my honest answer. We just have to keep working to look to get the players in and in the meantime work with the players that are here to make them the best that they can be

Asked about supporter frustrations at the board being unable to conclude deals Rodgers said

I think the board have shown over many years and numbers of years that the work will get done. And, obviously, as a group that runs the club and has run it so well for so many years, they’ll look to get what they will feel is the best value for the players.

Of course, as coaches and managers and supporters, you want the best players. But ultimately, the club will be run in a way that makes sure that both the best players and the best value are there to be made. So, that sits above me. That’s something that clearly does.

I think we support what’s here at the moment. We look at our season last season, a couple of penalty kicks away from having a fantastic season both domestically and in Europe. And then this summer, of course, we want to improve the squad. And the board will want to improve the squad as well. So, I’m very hopeful that we can we can do that.

I can’t afford to get bogged down in it. We know what we need, and then I also have to ensure that the players that are here are fit, and attitudes are ready to play how we want to play, and then as the window goes on, hopefully we can add the players that can make our football smile even more.

Clearly the stand-off between the manager and decision makers has intensified, while Nicholson and Lawwell hide out in the boardroom Rodgers is facing the media at least twice a week.

On Sunday at Aberdeen he will have pre-match interviews with BBC Scotland and Sky Sports, he will speak to them after the action at Pittodrie as well as an all-in media conference.

There is a far bigger issue on-going at Celtic than three points in the SPFL or the fitness of Kieran Tierney. Celtic have created this situation, the responsibility is on the CEO for allowing it to fester.

Nicholson won’t speak until November, at the AGM which summarises his attitude to the club, the support and his role, whether Rodgers is at the podium for the final time is up for debate.

Last week the issue of the manager’s contract was central to the media conference, in view of the content above that subject is a waste of time as the club searches for a compliant manager willing to build a team around the talents of players such as Yang Hyun-jun, Marco Tilio, Odin Thiago Holm and Kwon Hyeok-kyu.

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