Watch the Celtic manager’s interview with Sky Sports at Lennoxtown yesterday ahead of his media conference, with everything that was said there available to read below…
🍀 Expecting “tough game” at Dens
🍀 “I haven’t a clue” about Bobby Clark speculation
🍀 Important fans are “content and happy”We’ve been speaking to Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers ahead of Sunday’s game vs Dundee, live on Sky Sports 📺 pic.twitter.com/49mwy6gjZ7
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) October 17, 2025
Q: Do you want to start with injuries then, Brendan? How is everyone ahead of this weekend?
Brendan Rodgers: “Daizen Maeda will be out. He felt his hamstring a little bit towards the end of the last game against Motherwell. He went away internationally to see if it would get better, but he obviously didn’t play when he was away. So, he will miss this weekend, and we’ll assess it after that. Paulo Bernardo’s been ill, so we’ll see how he recovers in the next 24 hours. Apart from that, everyone’s okay.”
Q: Alistair Johnston?
Brendan Rodgers: “Yes, Ali’s back in training, which is great news for us. Hopefully, all being well, we’ll finalise the squad tomorrow, but hopefully he’s good to go.”
Q: How do you assess the start to the season? What needs to improve for you over the coming months?
Brendan Rodgers: “I think it’s always a challenge, the European aspect of everything. There’s a lot made of the past and what has happened. But really, it’s addressing now the future going forward. We’ve shown glimpses of our game in a lot of our domestic games. We just need to find a more consistent level and, of course, that’s something I’m really looking forward to doing. The players are working very, very hard. We had a really good victory in the last game against a good team that were unbeaten in the league so far. So, we knew we had to really work for that, and we showed our spirit and our quality by the end of that game. So, we want to continue in that vein. Now, the focus is very much on the seven games in 21 days, and that’s my only focus.”
Q: What do you expect from Dundee? It can be a difficult trip up the Dens.
Brendan Rodgers: “Yes, always. Our record there is very, very good as a club over numbers of years, but it still doesn’t make it an easy place to go. I think Steven Pressley will have them really well organised. He’ll have them competitive. They’ve shown already this season that they can get good results and performances. So, we know coming back after the international game, we need to get our fluency and get our tempo into the game as quickly as we can and look to make it really difficult for them, hopefully.”
And why wouldn’t he leave with a penny pinching board and a section of biased supporters who can’t count the trophies won to date under his management.
Hail Hail.
Well it’s easy to see that this backstabbing manager had managed to get into your head and convince you that “it wisnae me” “a big boy did it and ran away”!
You are so gullible!
Rodgers is no more a Celtic man than Barry Ferguson is!
Okay, maybe 5% more! But not as much. He’d like you to believe! He has somehow sucked many fans in, including you by the looks of things, into believing that the board aren’t giving him the money to buy players he wants!
REALLY? Ask yourself, if you told your kid he could go buy a Mini and pulled up in a BMW sports car that cost twice as much but was an old banger, would you trust him again?
Think Engels! Idah! Trusty! £26M wasted! All Rodgers buys!
I wouldn’t send him for a fish supper!
Joe, this argument against Brendan Rodgers – who is not without his faults – is tiresome. Let’s look at that claim in closer detail relating to Adam Idah who was initially valued at no more than £3m by Norwich and had the board backed the manager’s judgement at that stage in late January 2024 then Norwich would have gladly accepted that sum for their out of favour, third pick striker. Idah scored crucial goals in a tight title race and also won us the Scottish Cup in the final against theRangers. Had the board – who do the negotiations – added a purchase clause in the deal with a set price then it would have been reasonably set at £3m.
Due to Idah’s success playing on loan from Norwich they were able to exploit his success from his time at Celtic to get three times their money. Fair play to them. So £3m of the fee was down to Rodgers and the rest down to the failings of our board who at that stage we didn’t quite appreciate just how bad they are in this transfer business.
Incidentally Idah scored 20 goals last season too including three on the Champions League and forced the goal that got us through against Young Boys coming off the bench. In the end his confidence was entirely shot because of folk like you and many other keyboard warriors constantly attacking him.
So Brendan signed a £3m player, who helped with the league and Scottish Cup while on loan then scored 20 goals after signing a permanent deal and was subsequently sold for £7m – a £4m profit from the Rodgers side of things. The extra £6m paid was due to the Celtic Board not the Celtic manager.
Trusty played really well in the Champions League last season – MOTM in Atalanta game – but has been injured this season. He’s fit at moment but is being kept out the team by Scales, a player Rodgers has improved considerably. If Trusty was to be sold Celtic would easily get their money back so nothing wasted there as far as I see.
Engels, like Idah has been targeted because of the fee Celtic paid. He celebrated his 21st birthday after signing for the club. His first season showed promise, less so this time around but who in that midfield is functioning at their best and with so many of last season’s top forwards gone – Kyogo, Idah, Kuhn etc – then that’s maybe understandable in the short term. Engels is more a 6 in my view and he is highly enough regarded for Celtic’s money to be safe.
Brendan Rodgers left Celtic the first time around due to the very same Celtic board NOT backing him – think John McGinn and I’ll happily tell that story again if required. He is not one of their puppets (like Lennon) and like Dom McKay he was forced out. Rodgers though had delivered a volume of success in his first time as Celtic manager to rival the glory years of Stein domestically. He remains the Celtic manager with most trebles and as a Celtic manager he has the best record at Hampden.
In Europe he didn’t do so well in his first spell and wanted to change that coming back. He saw progress last season did we not, then the board failed badly in the summer. They also failed back in January trying to replace Kyogo and they knew since the previous summer that he’d be leaving.
Brendan will I believe leave in the summer. What will come next will be a Lennon-like yes man. Someone schooled in the Celtic Board way and because of that he’ll get their backing right to the bitter end when it all blows up in their faces, like it did in the season 50k season ticket holders paid their money knowing we’d get into the zero games. That’s what £30m ‘invested’ into the club that no boardroom in the English Premiership got that year.