GORDON Strachan, the former Celtic manager, insisted Brendan Rodgers could have held out until the end of the season – and landed a bigger club than Leicester City. Speaking to betting website Paddy Power, the former Parkhead boss – who delivered three top flight titles and six trophies in all before leaving for Middlesbrough – insisted Celtic are a far bigger club than the East Midlands outfit. The only problem is that they are marooned in a league which lags well behind the FA Premier League.
“I’m disappointed Brendan has left Celtic for Leicester – I would’ve wanted him to at least have stayed until the end of the season,” said Strachan. “I thought Brendan would wait a wee while longer and get a club somewhere around the world that guarantees you Champions League football. But I understand that he, and the club, have probably made a decision to remove the uncertainty from the situation. The club can now move forward.
“Let’s get one thing clear: Celtic are a giant club,” added Strachan. “One of the biggest in the world. Far bigger than Leicester. But that’s not the comparison – the league in England is far advanced of Scotland’s that it’s untrue. There’s a point when you’re in Scotland when you say ‘I’m at a huge club here, but is it enough?’”
READ MORE: Stewart Fisher: Is Leicester City a step up for Brendan Rodgers?
In addition to the standard of footballer he will get to work with, and lock horns against, south of the border, Strachan admitted factors such as plastic pitches and the intensity of the media scrutiny in the role may have become a grind. Celtic’s best team of the Rogers era ‘was probably in his first season’.
“Was the league still testing Brendan?” said Strachan. “It did for the first season or two, because it was fresh, but it mightn’t have felt fresh anymore. Where would he go with them next season? His best team was probably in his first season.
“Small things like having to play on three plastic pitches every season, which rattles him, or the fact that you can’t progress in the Champions League – Europe has probably been the one disappointment for Brendan at Celtic but, without spending £150million, I don’t know what more he and his coaching team could do.
READ MORE: The highs and lows of Brendan Rodgers' time at Celtic
“You also have to consider the madness of being an Old Firm manager, where you spend 75% of your time answering questions about things that have nothing to do with football, which can be draining. It takes away from the beauty of the game.”
Strachan accepts that the Northern Irishman’s departure is a setback but knows there will already be a flurry of inquiries and CVs to be his replacement. While he ruled himself out of the running, he compares the brains trust in the Parkhead board room, headed up by the likes of chief executive Peter Lawwell, to chess players.
“It’s a blow to the club, but they’ve lost managers before and dealt with it,” said Strachan. “There’ll be a mad rush around the world now, of people wanting to apply to work at Celtic.
READ MORE: Steven Gerrard ‘not surprised’ Brendan Rodgers is leaving Celtic
“The people behind the scenes at the club have seen it all before,” he added. “They’re so good at their job, it’s like working with chess players. They can see problems coming, they’ll have prepared for this – they would’ve known it was coming.
“There’ll be a lot of great managers they talk to. They’ve hired people before with links to the club, but also without links – my only link to Celtic was getting booed every time I played there with Aberdeen.
“The next appointment will say a lot about how Celtic see themselves. Do they keep playing the same way that Brendan had them? Which might be a good idea. They have the means to buy players better than the rest of the division, so it’s a great job.”
“Me? No, no, no, no. If you’ve had such a good time at a club, like I did at Celtic, I don’t think I could re-trace my steps. Unless that’s the only place you’ve felt alive and it’s your club. Others have done it, but I’m onto different things now. And I think I would’ve got a whisper of it, as I talk to Peter and Dermot [Desmond] quite often. It might have come up. But they only talk to me about golf.”
Gordon Strachan was speaking exclusively to Paddy Power News. To read more, visit news.paddypower.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel