CONFIRMATION that Brendan Rodgers would be the next Celtic manager arrived around dinnertime on Friday evening. It served as a sign of intent from the club and a seismic shift in policy from the two previous managerial appointments – Ronny Deila and Neil Lennon - that involved an element of stepping into the unknown. Even those who served prior to that pair did not have a club of the stature of Liverpool adorning their CV as Rodgers does. Tony Mowbray had bobbed up and down the divisions with West Bromwich Albion, Gordon Strachan was with Coventry City and Southampton, while Martin O’Neill was prised from Leicester City. In securing a manager who was only a Steven Gerrard slip away from winning the English title just two years ago, Celtic have completed a considerable coup.
Rodgers is still only 43 but already boasts a significant coaching hinterland. That experience, that arrived earlier than hoped for due to a playing career cut short by injury when he was just 20, includes time coaching in the Chelsea youth and reserve set-up as well as frontline stints with Watford, Reading and Swansea City prior to his arrival at Anfield in 2012.
His involvement in Being Liverpool – a fly-on-the-wall documentary that charted his every movement not long after starting the job – did not always portray him in the most flattering of lights but those who have worked under him speak of a thorough trainer and meticulous man-manager who would likely thrive at Celtic Park.
It was Rodgers, in one of his final acts as Watford manager, who handed Lee Hodson a maiden appearance at the tail end of the 2008/09 season and the on-loan Kilmarnock player speaks fondly of his former boss.
“Brendan gave me my debut when I was 17,” he recalled. “He just told me to go out and enjoy it and that I would get part of the game depending on the result. We were 3-0 up after 15 minutes or so and I remember he said to me that I would get on and get a good chunk of the second half. I think I got 30 minutes and played well and that set me up for when Malky Mackay came in as manager the next season.
“Brendan wasn’t there that long at Watford but in his time there he had a positive effect on the club. He brought a lot of the young lads in to train with the first team and gave them the chance to make the step up. He influenced a lot of players at the start of their careers. After Chelsea he went into first-team management at Watford and that stood him in good stead as he’s obviously a highly-rated manager now.
“He proved that at Swansea and Liverpool with the way he wants to play football. And he did that at Watford too. He’s got a very good way of getting the ball down and playing a passing game. He’s very good at man management as well. His training sessions were very good. So I’m sure he’ll be a great asset for Celtic.”
Rodgers will articulate his vision at a press conference tomorrow, something the club are already turning into a gala event with a crowd encouraged to gather on The Celtic Way in front of the stadium to meet the new manager. It has been some time – perhaps the loan signing of Robbie Keane in 2010 – since the club has attracted someone with such box office appeal and Celtic are, quite rightly, milking every last minute of it. With Rodgers thought to be commanding a salary in the region of £2.2 million a year, they are evidently trying to ensure they get their money’s worth.
The club needed this kind of lift. Deila’s appointment was well-intentioned and, on the face of it, a bold new direction for the club but the empty seats at Celtic Park told their own story. The supporters had clearly had enough of watching a team struggle to put away largely mediocre opposition, while failures in Europe and the domestic cups further added to the weary sense of ennui.
Rodgers’ appointment, then, feels like a club trying to reconnect with its supporter base, as the installation of a safe-standing area at Parkhead also hints at. For all the talk of philosophies and “playing the Celtic way”, the simplest way to build an early rapport with the fans will be for Rodgers to take the team into the group stage of the Champions League. His pedigree will add to that expectation although a mid-July start date does not give him a huge amount of time to prepare.
He will also need to sift through a mismatched, bloated squad, a laborious process akin to untying knots in a set of earphones. That a club of Celtic’s calibre and stature can only call upon one reliable centre forward seems almost criminally negligent, especially when they have been stockpiling attacking midfielders like a pensioner hoarding tins of soup ahead of an impending harsh winter. It is a squad that looks like it needs a boost in morale and Rodgers, with his often satirised addresses and speeches, is the man to deliver that pep talk.
The return of Rangers to the top division, the elephant in the Celtic room, has surely also been factored into the equation when alighting on a managerial target of such a pedigree. It remains to be seen whether the success Mark Warburton has enjoyed in the Championship will continue following promotion and whether chairman Dave King will finally provide the levels of investment that has been promised since early in his tenure. Celtic, though, have fired the opening shots in this war. Interest in what was already shaping up to be intriguing new season has just been raised a further notch.
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