BRENDAN RODGERS united everyone associated with Celtic both when he arrived and indeed when he left the club yesterday. And while 13,000 turned up to welcome him to Celtic on that gloriously sunny afternoon in May 2016, had Celtic opened the stands last night to the support, you get the feeling that Rodgers could have attracked double that audience but this time to tell him exactly what they thought about the manner of his departure.
We know that he was unhappy since last summer and that the relationship with Peter Lawwell was effectively broken. We knew that he’d be off in the summer. Of course we all knew what Moussa Dembele said and the Lawwell poodles in the support had been putting the knife in since last summer.
The January window saw a most £2million spend on a project striker plus three loan signings, some of whom may end up at Leicester with Rodgers, or at least that could have been his plan.
We all wondered why the Scott Brown deal took so long to be agreed – was that Australian offer really that attractive for a player who had the chance to lead Celtic to 10IAR? Broony obviously was looking ahead to who would be in the dug-out after this season and tellingly he seemed to deal only with Peter Lawwell on this.
The controversies surrounding the refereeing bias and the SFA Compliance fiasco after the Morelos incidents at Ibrox on 29 December, seemed to local difficulties that Rodgers did not wish to get himself involved in. He talked about the need for full-time referees and introducing VAR but never really got his hands dirty.
He never got the ‘Sad’ song treatment from the Zombies in the way Neil Lennon or even Steve Clarke – who yesterday ruled himself out of The Celtic job – did.
There are a few loose ends that need to be cleared up.
What happened at Lennoxtown on Monday? Did Rodgers speak to the players – who he referred to in his statement last night as being his friends for life, or did he send a representative?
Why has no Celtic player said a single word publicly or on social media about their manager leaving?
Is the rumour true that Kieran Tierney when hearing the news told whoever told the players to “F*ck Off!”
Are the rumours true that he tried to take ALL of Celtic’s backroom staff with him so that effectively Celtic would have had no-one behind the scenes in the football department at Lennoxtown?
Why the rush to leave? Rodgers could have seen out the season, then left with 8IAR secured and perhaps even another Scottish Cup and therefore a Treble Treble in the bag. There would have been no bad felling towards him at all and the pressure on Peter Lawwell would have been considerable.
Instead he walked straight away. Why? Negotiations with Leicester City appear to have begun in January and the initial plan seemed to be that they’d sack their manager at the end of the season and Rodgers would leave Celtic to take the job.
Leicester then lost 4-1 to Crystal Palace at the weekend and Claude Jacques Puel was sacked on Sunday morning, just before Celtic played Motherwell in the Premiership at Celtic Park.
Rodgers was immediately installed as the bookies favourite for the job and he walked out on a BBC Scotland interview when asked about the vacancy after the game. It was a telling moment from a manager who had never lost his composure in front of the media.
Things moved fast on Monday. Leicester approached Celtic and asked for permission to speak to our manager. Lawwell initially refused but to the fury of Rodgers who was obviously well aware that the Premier League side had met the contractual obligation that would trigger his release. Lawwell had no alternative but to allow Rodgers to travel to the East Midlands to speak to Leicester City.
Yet, and as we reported yesterday, Leicester seemed to be driving this through with a new urgency, probably following their thrashing at the hands of Crystal Palace. The logic was that each placing in the Premier league is worth £2.5million so if they get Rodgers in and he does well that could take them for example, 4 places higher, do nothing and wait to the summer and the Palace form could continue and they could drop 4 places. That’s a £20million swing right there.
So you can understand Leicester’s urgency.
However Rodgers was in touching distance of another title and could win another treble. Surely he wouldn’t walk away from that and in doing so tarnish, or even destroy his legacy at the team he claims to have supported since childhood. “A leader of men, a leader of people” he said in May 2016.
Remarkably the London Times has stated that it was RODGERS not Leicester City who forced through the immediate move on Monday.
Leicester, the paper claims, were prepared to wait until the summer, but Rodgers wanted to go IMMEDIATELY.
That is a remarkable betrayal but what would make him walk away from the chance to leave an amazing legacy in the Scottish game which would be talked about long after we’re all no longer here?
Ego.
The answer is to be found in the forthcoming fixture list for Leicester City.
Look at who they have to play.
Last night it was Brighton at home and the club got a new manager’s bounce and picked up their first three points of the year with a 2-1 win with Rodgers watching from the director’s box.
On Saturday they are at home to relegation certainties Fulham before travelling to play at Burnley then Leicester play Bournemouth at the King Power Stadium on 30 March.
Into April and Leicester play Huddersfield away, Newcastle at home and West Ham away – all of these fixtures are winnable and give Rodgers the chance to make his mark with a strong start to his return to the Premier League.
To him there’s more glory in achieving that in England than finishing off the season with more silverware at Celtic.
Leicester’s last three games incidentally are Arsenal at home, away to Manchester City and on the last day of the season, at home to Chelsea. By these games Rodgers will feel he can have the players playing his way, winning games and therefore be full of confidence to get some points from the home games. The two London clubs could be beatable.
That could be our answer.
One comment that is worth noting, from everything that was written yesterday, seemed to sum up Brendan Rodgers as a man.
“Fake teeth, fake tan, Fake Timothy,” shortened.
