Strachan’s verdict as Brendan Rodgers takes on the media narrative

Brendan Rodgers came out of Celtic’s win over St Mirren on the front foot- hitting out at the narrative that the club and team was on the slide.

Statistics are easy to manipulate with Celtic having won eight and drawn once in their last nine matches accompanied by dropping eight points in the SPFL since the start of December.

Almost certainly when the hoops kick off against Kilmarnock on Saturday they will be in second place in the SPFL despite winning both of the Glasgow Derbies.

Rodgers has some significant absences to deal with covering four key players from last season’s treble winners that lost Jota and Aaron Mooy in the summer.

Gordon Strachan knows all about the pressures involved in managing Celtic, discussing the current boss and Sunday’s comments, Strachan told Lord Ping :

First of all, that is something that I would never have said as a manager; it’s too cerebral for me (laughs)! I think 90% of the Scottish public would have questioned those comments, but Brendan has made them because that is the way that he defuses any clash or tension with people outside of Celtic Football Club.

Brendan knows about the world he is living in as Celtic manager. In Scotland, when one of Celtic or Rangers is doing well, the manager of the club that is not doing so well has to be able to take the baton of criticism and deal with that. That is the reality of Scottish football. If Celtic win the league at the end of the season, then no one will remember this period.

As Celtic and Scotland boss Strachan rarely played along with any suggestions from the media.

Strachan’s son Gavin is first team coach at Celtic while another son, Craig has been Senior UK and European Scout since June 2019 having previously run a golf shop for 12 years which also covered a minor scouting role at Celtic.