IT is the nuclear option, the ultimate weapon in every football manager’s armoury. Brendan Rodgers didn’t exactly fire it the other day, but he did the equivalent of jotting down the access codes and hovering his finger over the big red button.
It has been peace in our time in the boardroom ever since the Northern Irishman joined Celtic two seasons back, but when Rodgers referenced his club’s transfer business this summer and said ‘I want to bring in quality and thus far we haven’t completed on it’, this was a calculated shot across the bows of chief executive Peter Lawwell, largest shareholder Dermot Desmond and the rest of the Parkhead board.
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All managers, of course, have different boiling points when it comes to these incendiary comments designed to spark action from their paymasters. Neil Lennon has an obvious hair trigger tendency, firing a broadside at the board, usually from a position of strength, towards the end of most of his Parkhead seasons. His stellar campaign at Hibs was accompanied by something similar, his very future at the club was engulfed in uncertainty.
But in truth this club is one which all managers have in the bag, and skilfully deployed it can get you out of the rough. Shortly before Steven Gerrard went down the route of claiming a historical conspiracy against Rangers, he was gently suggesting via the newspapers that he wanted the final few pieces of the club’s transfer business this summer to be completed in a timely fashion. Fast forward a week and Borna Barisic is arriving from Osijek for £2m.
Then there is Jose Mourinho, a man who often seems to be in a constant state of war with his own boardroom – and at times even his own players. The Portuguese has been telling everyone all summer about the transfer spending the Old Trafford club need in order to avoid being left behind by their rivals to the point that his relationship with the club’s executive vice-chair Ed Woodward is said to have seriously disintegrated. Expect more fireworks, both before and after tonight’s Barclays Premier League deadline.
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How Brendan Rodgers would love to have the resources Mourinho has at his disposal but the Celtic case is interesting, because it reveals the conundrum or fault line which will remain at the heart of the Parkhead club for as long as it is deprived the game changing finance on offer south of the border. While Rodgers speaks glowingly and with genuine warmth about both Lawwell and Desmond, and vice versa, ultimately the two men are playing different roles in this scenario
As manager, Rodgers is correct to bang the drum for further investment in his team, in order to improve them as much as possible. While the club’s wage bill swelled after his arrival, initially with wages for the likes of Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembele, then loan fees and the like for Patrick Roberts and Charlie Musonda, he has largely been content to work with the group he has at Celtic. He is correct to pinpoint the few quality additions he needs to keep improving.
His chief executive, on the other hand, is equally correct if he takes the stance that he could commit to upwards of another £30m in fees and wages this summer and still have no guarantee of getting closer to the Champions League knockout stages. While they are perhaps due a more favourable group stage draw, assuming that is the club navigate the two rounds they need to make it back in there, quite easily they could be staring at another two giants of the continental game.
The extra quality Celtic need generally costs serious money. But committing to a bumper deal for John McGinn – a man who would have to battle to make the Parkhead first team – would hardly make that a done deal, as would have spending the £7m it took to take another reported target, Sporting Lisbon right back, Cristiano Piccini, to Valencia this summer. While the likes of Olivier Ntcham and Odsonne Edouard look stellar signings, there hasn’t been much value thus far from Eboue Kouassi or Marvin Compper. Celtic’s tragedy, if you can call it that in a period of such domestic dominance, is to be a Champions League club locked in an English lower league environment. Until that resolves itself, boardroom battles will be a fact of life.
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