Brendan Rodgers has downplayed suggestions of a personal rift with the Celtic hierarchy but warned the club must align its football strategy with its business model to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
The Celtic boss, who has faced weeks of speculation following damaging leaks and a poor transfer window, confirmed he continues to hold regular talks with senior figures at Parkhead.
He’s set for a meeting with the decision makers on Friday afternoon
“I am speaking to Michael (Nicholson) later this afternoon. On a personal level, I have huge respect for Dermot (Desmond). He’s a big reason why I came back,” Rodgers said, quoted by The Celtic Way.
“Michael and Chris (McKay) are good guys, in on Christmas Day, these are honest guys. We just have to make sure our football model is lined up, or we’re just going to be in this cycle.”
Rodgers has been vocal about the need for timely and targeted investment, stressing that Celtic’s failure to strengthen early left the team unprepared for Champions League qualifiers this summer.
While the club’s business model remains financially successful, the manager insists it has to be balanced with football priorities if Celtic are to progress in Europe and keep key players happy.
Supporters have overwhelmingly sided with Rodgers in recent weeks, directing their anger at the board after a transfer window that saw Nicolas Kuhn and Adam Idah depart without proper replacements, with Kyogo, who left 8 months ago, now still to be replaced.
Rodgers’ comments suggest that his relationship with Desmond, Nicholson, and McKay remains intact, but he stopped short of naming Peter Lawwell, although he is a non-executive director.
What I find the most interesting of all from all of this, is how many of the fans who are hanging on every word Rodgers is saying today, yet those same fans know for a fact he lied to them in exactly the same fashion in 2019 a few minutes before walking out the door! A walk he had planned, because he had already secured a new destination! It was like someone changing addresses!
For some obscure reason, the fans WANT to condemn the board and revere the manger!
Yet history proves the success lies with the board and the dishonesty with the manager!
Go figure!
It’s not even as if we’ve played well since the turn of 2025!
Nonsense. The team has succeeded in spite of the board. Or should that be hoard? That is what they do with cash, after all.
In Batman lore Joe Chill was a hired thug who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents at some mobster’s behest. Are you a hired mug working at the board’s behest? Joe Shill?
Are you the same guy that’s been banned from VideoCelts?
Septicton. Joe makes very relevant points. BR has not managed the transition from Anges team to his. Despite telling us all that he had a plan to do so.
Though the football has been a bit hard to watch at times he’s still delivered at home and in Europe and I’m fairly certain that transition would have required players he had in mind that were not delivered by the board that Joe is so desperate to defend.
It can’t be all one-way blame. Sure, the Board has made mistakes in not moving early enough. Brendan has also made mistakes. He inherited a pretty good team and managed to mess up a number of players. Kyogo for sure and then Oh. That player was nearly sold for 28 million a few days ago. Until the buying club played up and tried to pull a fast one. He actually preferred Idah, who has big trouble hitting barn doors.
He is correct in saying that the on-field priorities must match the off-field ones. We have to try and find a way around getting players in who will play in the SPL. It’s not a big pull, is it? It’s Brendan’s arrogance that rubs people the wrong way and his refusal to work with many of Ange’s players.
I do not think that Brendan can pick a player at the right price. Maybe he is a good coach of players, but only his players. Is he seriously telling us that Idah is a better player than Oh and that Kenny is a better player than Shin?
There needs to be communication from the Board, not during a window, but prior and after and for the rest of the season. They have to be honest with us and with themselves and be a more adventurous
The Board is comprised of a shower of incompetent misers whose absent landlord is more interested in golf days out than with the Celtic fans who plough their hard earned cash into his cash cow. As for Brendan Rodgers, well, “elite managers” simply do not lose matches to pub teams like Kairat, whose own manager doesn’t even have his coaching badges. No, Brendan belongs to an out of date management style, the old side to side, back to middle type of style. Ange Postecoglu brough the best players to Celtic and put together a team that fired rapidly on all cylinders for 90 minutes. Once he left, the main players in the team became disillutioned with change in style and tactics and wanted away. Their replacements, though costing far more money, are a mere shadow of those players. What is needed now is a new, forward-thinking and dynamic Board, a manager of Ange’s calibre and a rebuild of at least half that team. Will it happen? Not a chance.
Interesting that he never mentioned Lawwell in his recounting of who were all “good guys” .
Well, we know that Lawwell undermined him last time which I believe was the main reason he jumped ship and I don’t believe their relationship is any better, so my money is on Lawwell having briefed against him in an attempt to deflect from the anger of fans at the Board’s failings. Lets face it, would anyone put it past him?