Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Rangers v Celtic - Ibrox, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - September 3, 2023 Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
Brendan Rodgers was in battling mode after watching Celtic’s 2-0 win over St Mirren to book a place in the last eight of the Scottish Cup.
After laboured performances against Aberdeen and Hibs the prospect of another away day- against St Mirren in the Scottish Cup came loaded wit danger.
At Hibs and Aberdeen Kyogo Furuhashi and Adam Idah had limited playing time together, in Paisley they started the match together with Celtic instantly given a fresh dimension with the on loan Norwich man occupying the centre of the Saints defence allowing Kyogo to find the pockets of space that he thrives on.
Ten minutes into the second half Celtic were two goals in front, before the full time whistle the main attacking players had all been substituted with a quarter-final place secured.
Rodgers knows the stakes that e is playing with but seemed relaxed and assured as Emma Dodds took a back seat to allow Neil Lennon and Jim Goodwin to bring out the expressive side of the hoops boss. Those three could have spoken together for hours, their conversation probably continued off camera.
Soon after Rodgers found himself in the St Mirren media room, a small enclosed area at the corner of the Main Stand, when there are more than 20 reports inside it can seem intimidating, Tony Mowbray spoke his last words as Celtic boss from the location that Rodgers was in yesterday.
Four minutes into six of questioning Rodgers seemed to get a weight off his back as he was asked about the crisis his club is going through.
I don’t think it’s a crisis. It’s obviously a narrative that’s been created outside but I don’t expect anything less to be honest. We just focus on ourselves. We are a winning club.
When you’ve won consistently over a number of years, people will look to jump on you and bring you down –and bring me down. I am here to win. For sure we will have our day, and have many days going forward.
We’ll get our influential players back and the squad will be very strong to the end of the season. We’ll continue to fight.
We just have to prove a point to ourselves and our supporters. I think that’s always the best attitude.
Rodgers can enjoy a full week of training now at Lennoxtown, Adam Idah’s first as a Celtic player with Greg Taylor back for Saturday’s match against Kilmarnock.
Celtic will almost certainly start that fixture in second place in the SPFL Premiership table but after the bruising that the team has come through since the 1-0 win over Ross County they can face Saturday’s return to Celtic Park with a degree of confidence and expectation.
I wonder will Ross County manage to restrict Sevco to a 1-0 home win…
Or better still – a draw –
Ach… Then I woke up and had ma cornflakes !
Well ,if you listened to BBC Sunday Sportsound with it’s pre match Paisley build up and commentary of the game ,there certainly was a monumental crisis taking place inside Celtic FC.
Big Dick Gordon pouring on the negativity at every opportunity ,with the sad thing being he was being comforted by Pat Bonnar ! Then the commentary from Al Lament ,sorry ,Lamont . It was the most underwhelming piece of horse dung imaginable . When the second goal went in ,he might as well have been describing the green grass pitch such was the disinterest in his voice.
The match analysis was St Mirren could have done this …or would they have done this …or if only they managed to do things differently …nothing but despondency in the result . The narrative from the SMSM and every other outlet is ‘ Celtic in crisis ‘ because they are desperate for a massive collapse ! Sadly for them ,Brendan has tippled to their delusion ,with his comments yesterday .
I fell asleep during the match, that’s how entertaining Rodgers has the team playing, slow boring negative football.
Get rid of Rodgers and Lawell and there is no crisis.
Keep both and just gift the league to The Rangers.
We waited waited waited with Lennon, you know the rest.
Rodgers is not the mgr to improve Celtic.