In football, two negatives don’t make a positive – Rodgers was right choice but needs to get a grip

On a very quiet Sunday I wrote this. Really not sure about it, but to be honest, I think it’s how I’m feeling. I think Brendan Rodgers was the right choice but he needs to get a grip…

One thing I’ve always remembered from school, is that a minus followed by another minus makes a positive. Hands up if you know the answer to this sum; 4-(-2)=? The answer is at the bottom of the post.

However, in football, two or more negatives are just that. After the Kilmarnock debacle, the manager stated:-

“We didn’t do enough when we had the ball. We didn’t show enough personality and didn’t show the quality to win the game.”

After Saturday’s debacle against St Johnstone, the manager’s thoughts were: –

“But overall we didn’t play at the tempo we would want to and the speed of the game and that little bit of craft you need to against a team that’s low.”

Let me say, the manager has my full support. The performances and results so far haven’t been great but he’ll sort it out. He does need to get the players and fans on board pretty quickly. Everything is a bit flat at the moment. Let’s have a bit more positivity from the manager. COYBIG!

A lot has been made of the manager not bringing in his own players. Truth to tell he was operating in a different market during his time at Leicester City. I’m pretty sure his first signing there was to pay £40m to make Tieleman’s loan move permanent.

He/Leicester also paid over £30m for each of Fofana and Perez. There are many more big transfers. Coupled with the wages paid in the EPL, it means that any players either with Leicester or on their radar during his time there, were never really “available” to Celtic. His time at Leicester came to and end when they couldn’t afford to pay those amounts in transfer fees.

I guess Brendan Rodgers took the Celtic job on the basis that a number of signings were already identified. The loss of Jota, Mooy and Starfelt, together with the injuries, haven’t helped. I think if he had identified any first team and affordable ready players, they would be here already.

So let’s have no more cryptic comments from him about our transfers and transfer policy. Most of the support will accept that he is a decent manager but some need to be convinced about him as a person. One thing the support has been used to over the past two seasons is straight talking from the manager.

If Brendan feels he has been brought in under false pretences or is not being consulted about transfers, he either goes or he gets on with things and no more coded messages. Anything else is unacceptable.

It was like this when he left last time towards the end of his tenure. I am reminded of his comments on Maryan Shved: –

“We’ve got about a million wingers and don’t need another one.”

Surely we are not back here? I can’t believe Brendan Rodgers took the job on again without certain assurances. If he feels the Board are reneging on them, deal with it internally. Don’t go making sleekit comments to the media. It’s not a footballing matter, it’s a matter of trust. The comments are just seen a rectum protectum on his part.

By the way, we could be doing with one of those wingers now.

I’ve always thought one on Brendan’s strengths was that he could change his team and tactics to suit the opposition/venue. I still believe he can but he needs to do it in a positive and straight talking way. HH

The answer is six btw.

Christopher Wotherspoon