Andy Walker believes that the Celtic board were delighted to see the back of Brendan Rodgers.
After just short of three years the lure of Leicester proved too good to resist and while the sudden nature of his departure opened the eyes of supports to someone apparently born and brought up as a Celtic fan it wasn’t a completely out the blue decision.
In the summer of 2018 Celtic failed to bring in a central defender knowing that Dedryck Boyata wanted away and was in the final year of his contract.
With Boyata and Mikel Lustig returning late from the World Cup Finals in Russia Celtic had work to do to get through the qualifiers to reach the group stage of the Champions League for the third season running.
On the eve of the third round qualifier against AEK Athens Rodgers brought up his unhappiness about the handling of Celtic’s interest in John McGinn.
From that moment onwards a parting seemed inevitable. The standard of signings went downhill rapidly with Youssouf Mulumbu, Marian Shved, Vakoun Bayo, Andrew Gutman and Manny Perez adding little to a squad that had just lost Moussa Dembele, Stuart Armstrong and Erik Sviatchenko.
Reflecting on Rodgers’ departure in February 2019 Walker told Sky Sports:
I’ve been very critical of the Celtic board and their approach – I don’t think there’s been any succession planning. When you have a manager like Brendan Rodgers, that relationship with the board didn’t end well as Rodgers was critical.
The Celtic board hate criticism and they were delighted when he left to go to Leicester. They were delighted to get £9m in compensation. What they should have recognised was that he was a great manager and that he had improved players who were already at the club.
They should’ve looked to get the next Brendan Rodgers, the younger version, in much the same way that they scour the rest of Europe for players who don’t go straight to the Premier League in England.
Celtic should be targeting a young coach who has a proven track record of improving players. That is the way a lot of supporters would prefer they went about their business. The sooner they get someone in to do that, the better because there are a lot of changes needed in the Celtic squad.
Since Rodgers left Celtic have failed to even reach the play off round for the Champions League despite maintaining their domestic domination up until the Betfred Cup defeat from Ross County in November.
