Q: How do you balance your ambition with frustration if you miss out on players?
Brendan Rodgers: “I’ve been here before. I can manage it better now. That doesn’t mean it makes me any less ambitious. This is the club that I want to be at and I want to do the very best because I represent the supporters, to drive the team and move forward. Every coach or manager will have a moment in the window where they’re frustrated because you want to get players in so you can work with them and give them time. I believe that the culture here is set up to coach players to be better and improve. The quicker we can get them in, then the quicker the improvements take place. Unfortunately, we’re not in total control of it, you’re always reliant on the other clubs as well. Sometimes you have to have that patience. It’s very difficult for supporters and it’s so hard because there’s so much you read and hear. As a Celtic supporter, you may look at the team and go ‘Wow, they’re playing so well and if we can add the few that can really elevate that then it can be a really exciting season’. That is my intention here as well. It can be frustrating but experience tells you that you have to be patient and wait and judge it when the market closes.”
Q: The average supporter is saying ‘spend a little bit more money’. Is it as simple as that with fees and wages?
Brendan Rodgers: “Well, it’s not as simple as that but it is something that does help. You can’t question that. Listen, we would all love to buy a player for £1 million or £1.5 million then move him for £30-35 million – every club would love to do that. The game will tell you that sometimes you have to pay a little bit more to gain that extra bit of quality that is needed. That’s not to say that you can’t get players like Matt O’Riley, but it doesn’t happen a lot. I think if you’re always in that bracket, then the reality is you have more misses than you have hits. That’s the reality, especially with Celtic. This is a huge club, a massive club. If it was in a different league then this thing would absolutely take off. Where we are and the league we are in, it’s still a draw. This is an iconic club and we’re ambitious to be the very best that we can be here. So for that – and we have resources – we can get that level of player that can help us. I’m not one that says “only £8 million signings will succeed” and the ones that are only £1-2 million don’t. I’ve been around it long enough and seen it long enough to understand where we’re at and what it takes to get that extra little bit – you have to pay for that. That’s something I’ll continually push for.”
Q: Can Celtic’s reputation of being a cash-rich club hinder them during negotiations? Is that a feature of the transfer market?
Brendan Rodgers: “It can happen. I go back to what I’ve said about some of our players – it’s about value and worth. If we have a value on a player and we see that value to be a certain price, then we’re strong enough to stay with that price. For a lot of people in this line, it’s very much business and we’ve got people here who have got great business minds – that’s why they’ve been successful. I come from a football mind where I want the best football team on the pitch because that’s the bottom line. The bottom line is the team getting the best team on the pitch, so the supporters can see that and be excited about that. I think the business side of that – there are always negotiations and then teams come to an agreement. Then both teams win – hopefully!”
Q: On Mikey Johnston, are you getting to the stage with him and the club where it’s good for him to go somewhere else and play football regularly? There seems to be a lot of interest in him – is that something that could happen soon?
Brendan Rodgers: “There’s speculation about Mikey. He’s been out and won’t be involved at the weekend but he’s back training with the group and we’ll just see what happens. Mikey had a difficult period of injuries for a couple of years but he’s well over that now. He really showed a real robustness last season when he trained right the way through and had some nice impacts in games for us. He needed to go out because he wanted to play more and did that at West Brom. He did that really well and that will clearly bring some attention to him. We’ll see how the next week goes and take it from there.”
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It’s just more blarney from Brendan Rodgers. He gets very well paid for his “frustration” while the fans get short changed and lead up the garden path with feigned optimism. Brendan knows full well that little to no quality will be added to the squad by window’s end, but he cautiously tells the fans what he thinks they want to hear, always with caveats such as “hopefully we can add those players”, etc. IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
Every day for the past 3 months fans have been scrolling through the Celtic blogs and websites looking for positive news of quality additions to the team and every day all they get is rumour and disappointment. They know the money is there in the bank and they understand that it can’t all be spent on players, but they rightfully expect a sizeable portion of it to be allocated to team improvement for Europe. They’re ambitious for the club they finance with their hard-earned cash and yet every single transfer window they’re handed the same bowl of gruel by that greedy Board while men like Brendan act as their apologists. It’s no longer acceptable for a club the size of CeltiC and Brendan Rodgers should be declaring that openly. He has to man up and tell them that unless they invest in the team to give it the tools to compete with some dignity in Europe, then there’s no point in him being there. He won’t of course because he gets paid well and the fans get zilch!
send a copy of this to the Celtic View and see if it gets published. No wonder its called Pravda and the board the Politburo,Liewell as Stalin. Excellent Martin.HH