Q: Gustaf Lagerbielke is another player who has got a lot of interest. Do you expect him to leave before the window ends?
Brendan Rodgers: “I think to be fair to Gustaf, to go and play would be important for him. He and I have spoken on this here. It’s been a difficult move for him but I have to say he’s been absolutely brilliant – every day in training. I recognise how difficult it has been for him for at times not to be on the bench and to be training here as a small group on a Saturday morning or Sunday morning. He’s never once wavered from being the ultimate professional and for me, he deserves the chance to go and play. He’s not been in my plan to play but he’s been a great teammate and a real privilege to coach. He deserves an opportunity to go and play and we’ll see what that looks like.”
Q: With Maeda, do you think we’ll see more of him up top this season?
Brendan Rodgers: “It’s going to be really difficult to play him, Kyogo and Adam Idah up front at the same time! He actually does play up front for us a lot here but on the side. I think what he showed and what was nice to see was that last weekend he showed that he can play as a striker. I know there’s probably a cry for more but I see these guys every day. I have seen Daizen in his past play as a striker. With the two guys that we have, I’m fairly comfortable that if I needed a third one that I can put him there and he can do the job. He’s really shown that he can score goals. He’s different to the other two, but he can still score goals. My feeling more in the summer was more around a younger player, and I wanted the younger player to be someone from within our academy. That didn’t quite work out. We could go into the market and maybe get a younger one from somewhere but the reality is our priorities are elsewhere. I have to look after that, but knowing that I have Kyogo, Adam and Daizen there as the third one – that’s where we are at presently.”
Q: With Gustaf going, does that make centre-back a priority?
Brendan Rodgers: “It’s something that we’re looking at anyway. It’s not new.”
Q: The SFA report about U21s and young players not playing as much in Scotland and the Scottish league as much as other European leagues. You’ve lost Rocco Vata in the summer and there’s talk of Daniel Kelly going away too. Is it difficult to get these young players into teams or is there something the league could do to encourage that?
Brendan Rodgers: “I think there are a couple of things. For young players fundamentally the league is too small. It becomes very cut-throat with top-six and bottom-six – if you’re bottom-six then you’re fighting for your life at the end of the season, and if you’re top-six then you’re in there because you want to avoid that stress. That can be a difficult environment to put young players into. For a club like ourselves, it’s all about patience. We’ve had many examples of young players here, and the young players that have shown patience with Celtic and put their trust into the club with their development – those are the guys that have come through here and done really well. James Forrest, Callum McGregor, Kieran Tierney, Tony Ralston – all these guys. Some have been around and seen games and been permanent members of the team, whilst some have been important members of the squad. Celtic have shown that if you’re willing to show patience – because it’s a real challenge to get into a Champions League squad at 18 -, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be ready at Celtic. There’s definitely a lack of patience between 18-21 and that then means that some players decide to then move on and go out. That’s something that is out of Celtic’s control. Some might think it’s for development, some might go for money, but at a club like this here, the guys that are patient with it are the ones that have found their way through into the team. I think overall there are real talents up here – gifted players – but there’s no doubt that the league format could help maybe nurture and bring more players through.”
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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