Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

No, I'm suggesting he's doing something that's evidently not working over and over and expecting a different outcome.

 

McGregor plays out of position. Only because other managers have played him there too doesn't make it his position. Everytime he played more forward this season or in the past, he has performed better and been an actual goal threat. We needed a proper 6 for years and have lost games because of it in that time.

He gives the team so much more playing more forward.

 

McGregor hasn’t got the legs to play further forward now. Nor does he have the legs to play as a holding midfielder. If he could read the game defensively like Lennon for example then he could, but he can’t. We should be phasing him out.

 

Agree to an extent. Regardless of what setup we have however, we aren’t going to score many goals this season in my opinion. Mainly because we haven’t got players in the team who have ever scored many, outwith Maeda last season. And he has checked out. Still expect us to win the league, but it’s going to be a * watch. All after scoring a record number of goals last season. Despite being (boring) according to many.

 

Impossible to say with any certainty until the manager tries something different with what he has got.

 

I think failure on Thursday and Sunday and Rodgers will be on the banners with the board

 

Needs to revamp the team, formation and style. Can moan about lack of RW and CF, but when you have 70 odd percent possession in a game, amd the players who have the most touches and passes is CCV and Scales, then the set up is completely wrong.

 

If he lose against Hearts, and the huns the board needs to do their work and have balls to sack him. Im afraid they wont have the balls to do that now when the heat is so high on the.

Need to act FAST if we dont see change in the next couple of games. That could save the season.

He have never, ever in his entire career turned the ship around when * have gone wrong.

Now that he are sitting there thinking he is a * that is untouachable because nothing is his fault, it is very, very important that fans put preassure on him as well. Nothing

 

He says one thing, but does another.

He can change formation all he wants, but at its core the ideals for him on how move with possession and play will remain the same so essentially nothing changes.

It will never happen but we need a whole new coaching set up everyone currently sitting in the dug out as coach needs replacing

 

He has went to a back 3 in games and we’ve not looked any more likely to be honest. This isn’t coming as any great surprise though. We have a striker who didn’t have a club when the window closed, signed wingers who have never been prolific, albeit Tounetki does look a good prospect, but that’s all he is. Forrest who was a regular contributor in Rodgers first spell is now at the end of his career and managed 1 goal last season, Yang is hopeless and was half way to Birmingham before having to come back because we’re a shambles and our best player by a mile last season Maeda also thought he was leaving so isn’t all that interested. Idah for as poor as he started this season still got 20 goals last season and Kuhn had over 30 goal contributions. We have replaced neither of them. This is all our own making.

 

You're absolutely spot on. We don't even have the quality to play in the manager's first choice of formation. What realistic chance do we have of being able to play an entirely different formation and have the same players who aren't good enough to play the 4-3-3 suddenly be good enough now? We have pathetic depth in the striking and right wing area of the pitch. He have no out and out defensive midfielders in the squad, so we really are limited unless we put players out of position. The criticism of Rodgers and his tactics are over the top. The reality is, that current squad isn't good enough. Sure we could improve on Sunday's performance against Dundee, thats unquestionable, but its not good enough to challenge for a treble and compete in Europe and thats the reality. Bin Rodgers today, get in whoever you like, the issues we face need to be resolved in the January transfer window regardless.

 

He needs to start fighting, he came back to repair his legacy at the Club and with us..

Yes, the summer window was negligent, brutal really..

But, its as if he's almost resigned himself to his fate.. the comments about the manager getting it first etc, Honda Civics.. he needs to regroup and go again, walking away with his head held high.

 

Yet when people question it, yourself and @murphy88 feel compelled to defend the manager of the team that is "unquestionably" underperforming and absolve him of any responsibility of how the team performs. It's not just Dundee either btw. We've underperformed in many games, and the team is visibly dysfunctional within these games, not simply just lacking in quality up top.

 

No one absolved him of any responsibility, hence why I said we could unquestionably have performed better against Dundee. But you cannot possibly convince me that this squad is acceptable and that Brendan isn't being completely hampered by shambolic decision making from those above him. This team is going to underperform most weeks. Because inevitably its going to be compared to last year's team. When you downsize and downgrade players, or fail to replace them entirely, this is the end result. No manager is going to turn Johnny Kenny into a 20+ goal a year back up striker like Idah. Yet Brendan is taking the blame for "setting up" a team thats struggling for goals. You aren't going to turn Yang into someone who outputs Kuhn's goals and assists. Yet its Brendan's fault that Yang played yesterday despite the fact his options are a 34 year old Forrest or play someone out of position. Iheanacho, a player only here because of the manager, is not up to the job of scoring every game or every other game like is required of a Celtic striker. Yet the expectation is there for him to do so because he's Celtic's number 1 striker, and guess who gets the blame when he doesn't.

What's happened here is people are letting some poor results and performances cloud what happened in the summer. Not a single person on this forum the minute the window shut was happy with the squad and expected us to be as good as or better than last season. No one said Brendan should be sacked as its his fault the squad is threadbare. What's changed? Why has our expectations changed in 8 games that we now expect to be running away at the top of the league table? We're lucky Rangers are even worse and a bigger * show as we could easily be sitting 3rd in the table if this shambles happened in a different season.

We as a club at this moment in time, are a total and utter * show. You have the mens and women's team managers publicly calling the club out over a lack of investment, a stadium needing basic maintenance done to it, fans in a protest against the board every week and being fleeced left, right and centre with extortionate ticket pricing and new merch every 6 weeks. And yet I'm meant to log on here and believe Brendan is the main problem? Its lunacy.

 

Don't disagree with anything you've said there. And I've said repeatedly that he's been given an extremely challenging task by the board as a result of their failings. I feel that rather than accept that fact he's mentally checked out and isn't trying everything he can to grind out results and lazily throwing out the same XI despite form or confidence levels. For someone earning his money it isn't acceptable to down tools. If he's as big a Celtic fan as he and others like to make out he is, he would take professional and personal pride in our performances and results, regardless of the difficulty of the circumstances out of his control.

I'm not painting him as the main problem, doesn't mean he isn't a part of the problem though. A good coach gets a team to play better than the sum of its parts. We supposedly have an elite coach, so its time for him to prove it.

I'll quite happily hold my hands up and say credit to him if we win the league this season and it'll be by far the most impressive title he'll have won with us. My problem at the moment is he looks like he's happy to see it all go to * so he can distance himself from any failing and say "I told you so" and to spite the board. He has pervious for spitting the dummy out in similar fashion at Leicester.

 

I agree with you, but this narrative around him making "lazy" team selections and not being able to grind out results is neither here nor there. Suggesting that Rodgers is deliberately doing this to drop points and not get CL football is a seriously wild accusation. I can't see why he would go through the stress of the job, just to sabotage himself, the team and the board when he could have just walked in the summer and no one would have blamed him.

You are correct, it would be a fantastic achievement if he leads this team to the league title. So why would sacking him now mean it would be any easier for a different manager? Inheriting this squad of players 8 games into a league campaign would be a curse and leave a new boss a mountain to climb. No manger at this club with our current finances should ever be treated in this fashion. And certainly not someone who has served up as many trophies as Brendan has under this style of football that people are wanting him sacked over. He does need to get the finger out and find solutions, he's said as much himself. He does need to earn his wage and turn things round, but that also requires him to be correctly supported in his role by fans and board alike. The fact that many have turned on him in October and the boards actions against him in the summer, we're not really setting him up with the best chance are we?

 

I’ve never commented on the Dundee game from Sunday to be fair in terms of the performance. I’ll defend Rodgers this season though for the reason I stated in my previous post. Do I still think we will win the league? Aye. Will there he more games like Sunday to come? No doubt about it.

 

We’ve basically taken all the goals out our team, and replaced them with players who have barely scored in the last 5 year. Outcome is, we are struggling to score goals. Isn’t a big mystery as to why really.

 

I think playing guys out of form, or ones who are more experienced simply because he trusts them more is lazy personally, as is sticking to one formation despite not having the personnel to play it effectively and it's not producing performances/goals/results. I'm not suggesting he's deliberately chucking points away, I'm seeing a team who is reflection of it's leader currently which is disinterested, lacking motivation and going through the motions almost not wanting to be there. We will both agree that this situation has been brought about by the board - where we are failing to agree is that he is doing his best to salvage something from this sorry situation we find ourselves in. Calling the players a Honda Civic isn't going to help matters either.

Re: walking away in the summer, I categorically agree, and pretty much everyone on here said the same thing when the window shut. Problem with that is, Rodgers is like every other football manager and never in a million years walking away from a payday, whether that's by way of severance pay or sticking around to pick up his paycheque until he can leave.

Fair enough.

 

We don't have any players who are in form though. There's zero proof to suggest that changing starting XI makes enough of a difference that we'd automatically be winning. We've already seen the players who were on the bench on Sunday start games and not perform. Plus he's also having to manage 3 games this week in a 7 day period, so of course there has to be rotation. Sunday being the easiest game of the 3 would obviously make sense to switch it up. We had Daizen out injured, who is in poor form after the summer debacle. We started our other 2 strongest front options in Tounetki and Iheancho. We started Nygren who has been 1 of our main goal threats this season. Had our strongest 2 centre backs on the pitch. Sure Hatate could have been switched out for Engels or McCowan, Donovan in for Ralston, Sarrachi in for KT based on recent form. Question is, is that enough then to win the game or do we still concede 2 sloppy goals and struggle to score? I don't see the evidence to suggest there was players on the bench who would have been the difference. With the options available to him, is there a formation he's not thinking of thats screaming out to everyone else? We barely have quality to fill his 4-3-3. I'm sure if Brendan was confident that making a big switch in system was the answer he would make it. We've seen him switch to a 3-5-2 which has clearly been worked on. Problem is when its Johnny Kenny and Forrest coming on to make up the numbers its not exactly turning games round. There is no way in * he wants to finish this season on a * note or losing the league title to a team like Hearts. If Brendan is dejected and feeling low after the summer window then he's no different from every Celtic fan. We all are. Yes he needs to overcome it and the players that are here need to get the finger out and prove they deserve to be here.

I have no issues calling the players a Honda Civic after that performance. They should be made to feel like that wasn't good enough to be wearing a Celtic jersey. Brendan is clearly trying to give them a much needed kick up the * as we can all agree that there weren't too many players who got pass marks on Sunday who could walk off the pitch thinking they'd given a good account of themselves. Yeah it makes for comical reading and seems a daft comment, but there's truth in behind that. We are expecting Celtic level performances from a squad that isn't Celtic quality.