Q: Still a while before the transfer window opens again, you’re linked with Bobby Clark. Is there anything you can tell us about that?
Bobby Clark of Derby County during the Championship match between Derby County and Southampton at Pride Park on October 04, 2025. (Photo by Cameron Smith/Getty Images)
Brendan Rodgers: “It’s one that’s come from a long way out. I wouldn’t normally say anything on anything, but I really don’t know where that has come from at all. Especially in October. I’m really not sure where that’s come from.”
Q: Is it like what happened in the last window, Brendan? Is there a real urgency when you’re doing business, if you’re doing business, it’s early doors come January?
Brendan Rodgers: “Listen, for the overall health of the club, like I say, it’s not just about one window. The club is about progressing each time you go through each window. That’s the whole idea. Obviously, when January comes, the squad, if it needs strengthening, then that’s what hopefully can be done. But we’re quite away from that yet, so if you can just park that for a few more weeks, then we can focus on the football here and now.”
Q: You mentioned there’s seven games in 21 days. Does this feel at the start of a kind of intensive spell for the club?
Brendan Rodgers: “I think it’s a really exciting spell for the club. I think that early part of the season, where sometimes you are playing one game a week, and obviously, we’ve had some of the European games as well. But I think when you come into this period, and especially after the break in November, you’re really starting to get into the thick of it then. But there’s no doubt this period now, between now and the next break, is some big games in there, some really important games. But it’s for us to really embrace and really take on the challenge, and let’s just do it. It’s exciting, seven days as well, we begin next Sunday.”
Q: It’s going to be something like Dens Park on Sunday. Does that put extra pressure on you, somewhere where you haven’t lost for so long? As you mentioned earlier, I think it’s 1988 since Celtic last lost there?
Dens Park Dundee. Dundee v Celtic. 14th January 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou
Brendan Rodgers: “I haven’t really thought of it, I don’t know the date, but I now know. It never comes into the consideration really. I think that we go into the games, I’ve always enjoyed going to there. It’s a nice big open pitch and we always get a great support there. We know it’ll be a difficult game. Steven will ensure that. He’ll have his team really, really well organised. They’ll work very hard, but the onus will be on us to bring our game to hopefully make the result.”
Q: How have you found the international breaks? Obviously, you’ve got these seven games now, you’re trying to get a bit of rhythm up. It’s been quite difficult to do that when you’ve had these stoppages.
Brendan Rodgers: “Yes, I think the preference would have been, ideally, was that you’d lose one of these and put them in, whether you had a break in January would have been the ideal scenario. It is that little bit challenging, of course, to find that rhythm, but there’s still enough games in there. We all know it’s there before the start of the season. We all know. You just want to make sure that you can find your performance level whilst you’re playing and get to the next international break in a good place.”
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.