Q: Brendan, how would you describe the mood amongst you and the players today?
Brendan Rodgers: “We’re obviously glad the window’s shut. I see a really good spirit back in the team again. I think naturally in the window you have uncertainty and instability. But yeah, now that it is closed and we accept that it could have been better for us. But it is now behind us and my job now as the manager of the team is to pull everyone together and get us moving again.Q: How big a task is that given all the negativity that it seems to have come out from the window?
Brendan Rodgers: “That’s management, that’s high performance in any sport. You’re not going to have it all your own way. We have to accept and take responsibility that the window wasn’t as we wanted it. But now we have to get back and really get tight as a group and a squad. I believe that we have talented players in the squad. Now it’s my job to maximise the extent to which they can play the game, and that is the job of a manager and a coach. So I’m looking forward to that aspect. Of course, it could have been better in the market, of course, but it is what it is. We cannot look back on it now, I have to look forward. I’ve already seen that in the last couple days within the team.”
Q: Would it be fair to say that the striking position is the main area where it could have been better to use your words. Talk us through if you can what happened there and how satisfied or otherwise you are with your striking options?
Brendan Rodgers: “I don’t really want to go so much into the depths of how it came about. Adam was a player who hadn’t asked to leave, and wasn’t wanting to leave, but there was an opportunity that came where Swansea wanted him at the same time as other possibilities that could have happened for us. So we didn’t want to lose him but when the opportunity came for him and it was a good deal and everything else, then it looked like there was going to be one in and one out. It didn’t work out that way, and for whatever reason, we had to move on.
Thankfully, at the end of the window, when it was closed, there was a player who was available, and I know him very well. Kelechi Iheanacho was a player who was brilliant for me at Leicester, and I only wanted to take in someone here who was robust and had genuine talent. If I can get that out of him again, he can be a big plus for us. So yeah, we lost Adam, and Adam made a really good contribution, a lot of moments here and still scored plenty of goals for Celtic which is no mean feat, but he moved on, and we’ve got Kelechi in.”
Q: Do you sympathise with fans from the outside to feel that that can be seen as scrambling about that it wasn’t succession planning that was all under control when you had to go into the free agent market last minute?
Brendan Rodgers: “Absolutely. That frustration is shared. We all felt that. Absolutely. It’s why months out, we’ve spoken about what we need in the squad, and so yeah, I totally get that. The support has the passion and the commitment and the drive and that’s what keeps us honest as a team and as a club because expectation us every day is to come in here and to improve and get better, because we’re expected to do that for the supporters. So they keep us honest, they keep us driving and pushing, and that’s the way it should be.”
Q: Those supporters Brendan I think it’s fair to say that patience has snapped. 400 organisations calling for a vote no confidence in the board. How do you assess where the club is at the moment with the relationship with supporters?
Brendan Rodgers: “Listen, the club made a statement. I’m not here to answer those questions because they’re not mine. That will be something that over the coming weeks, I’m sure will become clear and how that evolves. I’m not here to tell supporters how to how to feel. You know, they feel frustrated. They’ve have a right to feel that.
My job is to drive as much as possible I can the team and the club forward. I came in here in 2016, and the treble had been done three times. From then I look to elevate the mentality and the standard of a football club, over this course of nine years, the expectation is to win a treble. And that combination of that drive and demand that comes from the supporters. I know because I feel it, I understand what the demands are. And that will continue. Because this club has huge potential, the size, the support base that we have, the history of the club, supporters want to see the club continue to develop, not just domestically. We’ve done that, and that’s always your bread and butter, but we have to be more consistent in performing in Europe.”
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I don’t want the Sun interview to be from Lawwell, I’want our Board chair to be better than that but …
Lawwell is a nothing but a cheap showboater who likes to rub shoulders at the top tables around Europe, while acting like Mr Big, pulling the strings in every way around the club, yet doing little except profiting in huge bonuses from the very money sitting in the bank that isn’t being used to invest in the team, or the stadium.
He’s part of the problem, but he’s the biggest part, and should never have been allowed back after all the previous warning signs, reaching this stage where the executive team are invisible, silent, deaf, and out of touch with reality. Make no mistake he’s at the centre of it.
Lawwell needs to go for the good of the club. Everything else will fall into place around that.
But never mentioned Liewwell,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,wonder why?