Twenty-eight months is more than many marriages last but after losing today at Kilmarnock the longest honeymoon in modern football is over for Brendan Rodgers.
The Irishman has brought Celtic supporters incredible joy since replacing Ronny Deila but the well of goodwill has almost been emptied after the hoops lost points for the third time in six matches to go alongside the Champions League exit to AEK Athens.
First time since he came that i have no interest in listening to him ????
— The Mad Monkey (@TheMadMonkey666) September 23, 2018
Not really an accurate assessment of the game. Awful performance – no fluency, slow build up play and not creating chances. Somethings is amiss.
Very ooor start to the season. We’re carrying too many players who simply do not have the quality to play for Celtic.— Bryan (@BryanMcLaren) September 23, 2018
Where has this 10 passes sideways and 5 passes back come from…we’ve never played like this…would rather the team went for it and lost than watch this
— David Farr (@davefarr67) September 23, 2018
i’m not an expert in body language… but just looking at that says to me ‘i can’t be bothered anymore’
— helen hart ???????????????????????????? (@bomerH) September 23, 2018
Better have a plan B, we’ve been like this for over a year but managed to scrape wins last season. Teams have sussed us out and it’s up to us to change.
— S32 (@sc32ie) September 23, 2018
Brendan will get it right. Tough period but he deserves the chance to work through it. We’ve dominated domestic fixtures for so long that this is a bit of shock treatment. We should never be losing that game today but nothing is going our way and the play is stale. Need a lift…
— Étienne (@EtienneBojan) September 23, 2018
All that’s missing is Tony Mowbray’s “take it on the chin” comment he came out with after every terrible performance. Not good enough from all these highly paid employees. Something is wrong in Paradise and needs fixed quickly. HH
— Kevin Clark (@eskbankbhoy) September 23, 2018
September is far from over but already it seems to have been an incredibly long season with several points of concern.
a) The manager going public with his disappointment at the failure to complete transfer business followed by a board member briefing against Rodgers to Radio Scotland.
b) The car crash that was Dedryck Boyata’s attempt to engineer a transfer followed by his return to favour
c) Moussa Dembele’s carefully orchestrated transfer
d) The underwhelming arrival of a loan defender and free agent as the transfer window closed.
Fortunately the wins over Sevco have continued, other than four wins over the tribute act it is hard to pick out any highlights from 2018.
Reports of a split dressing room are difficult to prove but also hard to deny, every match provides evidence that there are eleven individuals on the park rather than a team.
No coaching manual or video analyse can repair what appears to be the fault lines being shown on a weekly basis.
Some old fashioned management techniques are required, some of them may not be very PC.
The focus will be intense against St Johnstone on Wednesday, 15 minutes into the match we’ll know if Rugby Park was a watershed moment or just another signpost in an alarmingly sharp decline that no one anticipated four months ago as a double-decker bus drive up the Celtic Way.