Gary Keown hasn’t a clue why Brendan Rodgers came back to Celtic.
That is the conclusion that the Daily Mail reporter has taken from watching Friday’s broadcast media conference by the hoops boss.
From the usual suspects drawn from Sky Sports, STV and Radio Clyde there seemed to be barely a single question that took more than 30 seconds thought. There was a few interesting angles from fan media but nothing that was going to provide a cheap headline.
Keown could probably have got a long to a conference with the daily or Sunday papers but it seems like he looked on from afar to confirm his suspicions, shared with readers of the Daily Mail:
Joe Hart, particularly with the ball at his feet, doesn’t look a strong enough option in goal. There’s something afoot with Reo Hatate. Alexandro Bernabei is already a write-off at left-back. David Turnbull, sadly, doesn’t feel like the answer in midfield.
At present, this doesn’t look like a squad equipped to go deep in UEFA competition while keeping the boxes ticked at home, so what is it that enticed Rodgers back then?
He had an offer to go to the elephants graveyard of Saudi. No hassle. Bags of money. Lovely-jubbly.Â
Right now, adding his overall demeanour and the lack of excitement around the support to the dealings in the market, it is not easy to even work out why exactly he is here. Unless being a vanity project for Dermot Desmond counts.
The fact Saudi was Rodgers’ best option before Celtic came in shows his star has faded. Listening to him on Friday, though, makes you wonder whether the light is going out altogether.
It seems that after three years spent previously with the Scottish media Rodgers is less enthused by them this time round.
He energy and focus is on the training ground rather than a friendly joust over the quotes of Joey Barton or Pedro Caixinha.
Media conferences are a complete sideshow. Sometimes mildly interesting but 90 plus minutes at Kilmarnock on Sunday will be where thousands of Celtic fans will make judgements on their returned boss.
I hate to say it but I agree with much of what Keown says here. Hatate does not look like he wants to be at Celtic anymore, Bernabei at 5’7″ was never a defender for the Scottish game, David Turnbull is an average player and Rodgers doesn’t seem to be doing a lot to replace lost quality players. It’s strange because I met with a fellow Celtic fan the other day and the first thing he said about the situation under Rodgers was “something is afoot with him and Lawwell”. Call a gut instinct but there’s been a change in rhetoric from “we want to progress in Europe” to ” I’ll work with whatever the club provides to me”. Sorry, I don’t like the lack of serious transfers into the team. It’s not like their short on money!
Joe, why all the Daily Mail stuff? It’s always negative towards our club and almost certainly Lawwell’s favoured ‘brand’, and it suits him!
I doubt there’s a Celtic supporter on Earth that would give a single fukk about what that trash, tabloid, copy-and-paste brigade spout and even less for its editors.
Please, we’re generally a positive bunch but we currently need some encouragement with that as we have so many injuries to contend with. Daily Mail shite is really not required!
So we are talking about a reporter who would take such pleasure out of playing with his plums, which drooling over every word a thick hun, sack of shit of a manager has to say then?
Sure Rodgers won’t be losing any sleep over what a gormless eejit has to say
it is always about liewell since he came back it seems everything has ground to a halt it has the look of the old game i.e. we have to make sure that we do not let Celtic get too far ahead of the other one or else people will become bored there fore liewell,s bonus will disappear ,if this continues Rodgers will be gone before the end of the year,the team at present is pretty good ,apart from injuries we only lost Jota as for the rest Mooy only played very good after the world cup
Shame on you. You are no Celtic supporter. Something afoot is it? We could all do without fuds like you for whom clicks on your site is more important than the welfare of Celtic football club.
Take a long hard look at yourself.
You are worse than any hun.
100% Scottish media isn’t for us, it never has been. These type of headlines are to cause disharmony and they do as long as people are daft enough to believe them or read them. Brendan is happy, If he wasn’t he wouldn’t be here. Simple.
K
Despite his negative connotations – Celtic are TOP OF THE LEAGUE, and Champions League group stage football is GAURANTEED !
He seems to have an agenda where he definitely doesn’t want Brendan at Celtic – And being a Scottish Football Media man he has got good reason… Like – Seven outta Seven outta Sevco !
He’s just trying to sew division – Divide is the constant agenda of Butchers Apron lovers like him…
What a complete crock of shit,there is nothing better for these clowns to write about positively,how about they have signed six players already and with two weeks left are trying to bring in another couple of players.Players come and go so crawl under your rock at Greyskulls please
what a load of complete embarrassing crap.
I think its a mix of things.
Post-Bosman we, in our position not in Scottish football competition but world football finance, we are vulnerable to a manager coming in in the old manger role, king of the club. Setting up a backroom and bringing in players from old pal agents.
What the club has done since Ange arrived is recognise this and set up a new corporate structure where Celtic, the club, have a network of scouts keeping tabs on players in markets with potential that the bigger leagues haven’t tapped yet.
Whereas an old school manager picks players and demands the club secure them, now the club say ‘What do you need?’ to the manager, the temporary placeholder manager looking to be noticed by a monied club if they are successful, not king, and the manager says ‘Left-back’ and the scouts have a roster of scouted options with a profile and price that suits our means and demands, then the manager vetos players he doesn’t want or chooses from the list. It insulates us from any manager in the old role getting an offer from Middlesborough or Brighton in January and taking the backroom and the spine of our team, and their contacts, crippling us with very short notice in a league were a couple of stumbles can mean losing the league title and therefore the crucial UCL qualification cash.
I thought BR seemed a bit resigned too tbh but what I think what is actually happening (really hoping I’m not kidding myself on and my initial reaction was right) is a segment of the support didn’t want him back and he is giving a public facing cap-in-hand approach of atonement. This means he is, after getting the ‘he’s the guy from The Office’, a ‘snake’, ‘billy big baws’ treatment in some quarters he is trying to come off humble and that allied with the new system and, sorry to the ‘we have a ton of cash people’ and the ‘we shouldn’t just hope for, we should EXPECT European football after Xmas. Minimum!’ mob but that is based in a mythical history and emotion rather than in cash resources and reality of football in the modern era. Celtic are a historical and storied club with great tradition but the bifurcation of money in the market has left Celtic and big clubs in smaller leagues at the wrong table in a game of haves and the have nots. It’s not nice, I’m as happy about as you are. For the sake of any miscommunications: I’m not happy about it… but there isn’t really anything to be done about it besides moving to a bigger league (I’d prefer ANYWHERE but England if we do, you imagine the Sevconians and the Brexiteers if we joined the EPL? Nope.).
We are, and have been, a buy low speculating on potential club and that is a hit or miss business and any deals that come out in the press before we get them tied up is seriously risky as bigger clubs know we recruit well on a budget having in recent times become a feeder club for mid-table EPL clubs who mostly sell them for big cash to teams higher up the league a season or 2 later for a massive profit, it’s why we started doing a share of the resale as part of deals when we loose assets like French Eddie or Ajer. A potential switch getting into the papers before it is signed can scupper a deal for a future Celtic star to suddenly become a seat warmer in the stands of Brentford, in fact forget Brentford, mid-table EPL Championship teams can outspend us. The premature press attention drives biding wars that quickly eliminate us from the market.
In a world where we have to win the SPFL 33 times in a row (Southampton relegated with £100.3million in prize money, so, actually over 26 years) to get the prize cash for getting 20th from 20 in the EPL prem we are in the ‘buy young, sell high’ camp/wait til deadline day, hope a decent player at an overstocked mega cash club has a player that suits our need, who was hoping for a better deal in a better league with better weather, to loan him with an option to buy and pray the player falls in love while they are here and signs the following summer to be flipped in 2 season for a budget floating profit.
Seriously, Jota’s fee will have basically paid the wages and the improved contracts. Celtic total wage bill for 2023 is: £21,613,280 per year. Jota was sold for £25m.
2022/23:
3,843,000 SPFL Prem champions
609,000 Scottish cup winners
350,000 The Viaplay Cup trophy
25,260,000 UCL group stages
30,062,000 Total
then you add £1.05 million per game for 29 home matches in 2017 adjusted for 22/23. yada yada yada…
Celtic plc annual results for year ended June 30, 2022: £6.1m in profit (before tax, which some clubs have to actually pay) after sales and acquisitions, and a hefty £91.7m in operating expenses including labour and we borrowed £30.2m
Consider this: Slimani was brought to Leicester City for £30m and warmed the bench for a middle of the road team, sorry BR (BR was not backed at Leicester City and still won trophies), Slimani is 5 times our profit on 1 player whose fee is three times our biggest fee EVER +£3m. Why would you expect (don’t have a problem with ‘hope for’) European football after Xmas in these circumstances?
Perspective: When Barca pumped us Messi was valued on transfermarkt at 96% the value of every player in the SPFL prem combined and when we got pumped by PSG they had a frontline of Neymar and Mbappe assembled at £350m. Right now our entire club is valued at €118.65m and this is close to our highest valuation ever.
Giant killings happen, St Mirren beat us last season, Clyde and Raith have given us high profile humblings too but we remember Raith winning the Scottish cup at our expense almost 30 years ago exactly because it doesn’t happen that often. For the most part progress in Europe take a succession of Raith beating us at Hamden in a space of a few weeks. Can it happen? Yes. How likely is it to happen? Not very. Would I put money on it happening? Nope, certainly if I was a betting man I would not bet a lot. If it happens it’s the romance of the game, if it doesn’t? Probably about right tbf.
Money matters in recruitment and recruitment matters for performance and performance matters for results and results make champions. We’re Rocky v Creed… with one arm tied behind our back… and a head-cold. Weirder things have happened but don’t go putting the rent or the kids’ Xmas money on it happening and after being called fake BR is just being honest cause god forbid he tries to get us exited and looking in to the turn instead of the corner and despite that we are not David taking out Goliath. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, eh? HH
A very long post but generally worth reading and spot-on in places.
Nice to read an intelligent, well-thought-out post with very informative data.
We’re on the one road…………….
Thanks man
Mibbe,just mibbe, Brendan Rodgers had his eyes opened the last time he was in situ and as he has already been quoted as keeping a watch on all things Celtic while he was at Leicester he is now aware of the febrile anti Celtic feeling in the SMSM.
Every story has a pro hun – anti Hoops slant to it from these jokers.
Because of this he is a lot more switched on to their machinations and refuses to feed them the tidbits they crave that would give the rubbish they publish any air of authenticity.
We should conduct our media output through our own website and only allow the fans reps admittance.
That way everyone will know what’s to be learned from inside Paradise is coming straight from the horse’s mouth and not it’s arse !
Absolutely brilliant post. Thank you.
I didn’t enjoy the game today much at all but quickly put it in its place as, given the choice, it’s a game you’d have about top of the list, if any, to lose.
Hail! Hail! The Glasgow Celtic
Full disclosure Gary Keown in spite of his obvious Ibrox leanings and the right wing rag he works for has picked up the same vibe as alot of our own fans.There appears to be a bit of a flatness surrounding things that we can’t quite put our finger on but it’s there and it’s palpable.Maybe an exciting signing or two before the window closes will be the spark.I hope so,fingers crossed.
Gary Keown. Daily Mail. Lord Haw Haw.