Back in August storm clouds were gathering, it was far from sweetness and light during the darkest period of Brendan Rodgers’ reign as Celtic manager.
On the eve of the home match against AEK Athens, with John McGinn involved in talks to join Aston Villa, the Celtic boss expressed his frustrations at the lack of transfer activity.
The target was clear, the Celtic board.
The week went from bad to worse, shortly before the kick off against AEK the BBC reported boardroom anger about Rodgers’ outburst.
On the Friday, before losing to Hearts the Celtic boss was asked if his directors shared his level of ambition, Rodgers felt the question was unfair, he declined to answer but yesterday the Irishman was fulsome in his praise for the directors that he was sharing a platform with.
During the Q and A session at the AGM Rodgers said: “The success we’ve had in the last two and a half years has been about this collective.
“A collective performance on the pitch because that, for me, is where it all starts. And very importantly off the pitch.
“I can’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed in the summer. I think we all see that I’m not very good at hiding it.
“But what I’ve always had here since I’ve been at Celtic is a great support from the board.
“We’re all human. When you work closely with people, like you’ll do at work or in your relationships, it’s not always singing and dancing every single day.
“What I can always say about the board here is their job is to future proof the club. This club has been run immaculately for a number of years.
“From the time I’m here and from the time when I’m gone, it will continue to be.
“The guys who are here do an incredible job collectively with me and the team in order to be the best we can be. For two and a half years, the supporters, the board, the management, we’ve all been one. And we’ll continue to be one.
“Okay we’ve had disappointment in the summer and, like I say, we couldn’t hide that but my ambition is exactly the same as the board’s. They want it to be the very best.
“What is important is that we recovered from that and we have done. What we’ll do in January is look to improve the team again and improve the squad.
“What we’ve also found in the period when we didn’t bring in maybe who we wanted to, we’ve actually found some players as well in the likes of young Ryan Christie.
“Everyone up here is a supporter of Celtic as well. Our ambition is always for Celtic to be the very best it can be.”