UK Edition
From the moment Brendan Rodgers agreed to join Celtic, on May 20, 2016, some disdained his challenge, with the usual jibes about big fish in a small pond syndrome. After all, what was to be achieved in a league where the absence of credible challenge all but guaranteed Celtic an annual title and automatic entry to Europe?
Rodgers’ converted domination to monopoly, won every domestic trophy and unprecedented consecutive clean sweeps of the Scottish honours, via an intense training regime designed to guarantee that Celtic would deploy their superior resources in an insistent high press which overwhelmed lesser opponents.
The big fish turned out to be a piranha. Hoops fans relished Old Firm derbies that saw the flesh scoured from Rangers’ bones. Rodgers was no sooner in the door at Parkhead than he spoke of his reverence for Tommy Burns, Celtic’s late former midfielder and manager, and it was evident that one factor in his Northern Irish background was the understanding that subjugation of the team from the other side of the city should be a priority, preferably with bells on.
In the week of his first Old Firm derby, Rodgers declined to differentiate Rangers from Aberdeen or Hearts as potentially awkward opponents. When this correspondent observed that the Celtic manager ‘was putting Rangers in a box’, he actually spluttered. The point, though, was proven when the Ibrox side, under Mark Warburton, visited the east end of Glasgow for the first time since their financial meltdown in 2012 and were battered 5-1.
Celtic reprised the performance at Ibrox seven months later to achieve a record score on their arch-foes’ turf. While such frolics adorned the domestic scene, Rodgers had also been exposed to the vastly more rigorous test of European football, in which the Scottish co-efficient forced him to endure an extended qualifying process through the summer months.
Indeed, when his first competitive match – against the microscopic Red Imps of Gibraltar - ended in defeat, Rodgers’ flair for rebranding was evident when he declared it ‘a disappointment, not an embarrassment’. Celtic made the group stage of the Champions League, which began with a 7-0 thrashing in Barcelona.
Tellingly, Celtic’s best performance was a 3-3 draw at home to Manchester City which they encored with a 1-1 split at the Etihad.
Rodgers discovered, as had Neil Lennon, that if the qualifying process was wearing and the group stage intimidating, the financial rewards for the club added to his lustre. In 2017 Celtic again reached the group stage and the routine trauma came when PSG won 7-1 in Paris.
This season – after selling striker Moussa Dembele, with no replacement - Celtic had to settle for the consolation of a Europa League campaign, which ended last week when they lost in Valencia on a 3-0 aggregate. Sceptics might connect the timing of Leicester City’s move to entice Rodgers into a return to England but it should also be considered that no other Premier League club had sought his services since he was sacked by Liverpool in October 2015.
In that respect, the winning of a treble treble in Scotland – for which Celtic remain favourites – could be said to have the effect of a diminishing return for Rodgers’ reputation. Moreover, having suffered his first defeat in an Old Firm derby at the hands of his former protégé, Steven Gerrard, Rodgers has been reminded that the good times never roll forever.
He kept the Scottish football media at a distance in terms of personal relationships, even after he was on first name terms as a matter of routine, but his press briefings were always informative and largely genial. Brendan being Brendan, there was a certain missionary tone to his frequent references to ‘up here’, allied to pronouncements about the standard of pitches, refereeing, tackling and fan behaviour.
His departure has prompted mixed responses from Celtic fans. Some, though regretful, were grateful for the feats accomplished on his watch. Others – what might be termed the hard-line Remainers – denounced Brendxit vehemently as a betrayal.
Maybe the clue, all along, was in his appearance at the 2017 Scottish Football Writers’ annual awards dinner, where Rodgers was named Manager of the Year. Having acquired his trophy, the Celtic manager chose to leave during the speech by John Gahagan, former Motherwell player turned raconteur, whose response to the departing Rodgers prefigured that of the disenchanted Hoops fans.
Said Gahagan: “I’m singing a hymn of praise to Brendan Rodgers – and the c*** walks oot!”
Brendan Rodgers leaving Celtic is no surprise, but departure should not tarnish his legacy