Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic return and the missing 12,700 – but no sign of fan protests tells its own story
There have been few extra dynamic illustrations of soccer’s crazily-paved path than the re-unveiling of a Celtic supervisor 4 years after he staged a midnight flit to Leicester City.
Was it a dream? The Bobby Ewing-in-the-shower-meme has been doing good enterprise on Twitter.
Actor Patrick Duffy spent a yr away from Dallas, enjoying the goat in an Alice in Wonderland mini-collection amongst different components, earlier than returning as if nothing had occurred. There have been grounds for the most militant department of the present’s followers to cost Duffy with buying and selling immortality for mediocrity though whether or not banners outlining this perceived betrayal have been ever strung up on the pristine white fences resulting in Southfork ranch will not be recorded.
Brendan Rodgers has the same credibility downside but is blessed with the chutzpah to journey it out. In a direct message to these supporters who nonetheless must be satisfied, with followers’ group the Green Brigade sustaining their stance that he’s responsible of an act of treachery, Rodgers advised round 300 followers outdoors Celtic Park at simply earlier than 6pm yesterday that he’d see the doubters “again right here in May”, the inference being that he’ll be simply as profitable this time round.
The bother is that to be able to even keep the present price of success, domestically at the very least, Rodgers must win every thing. He will again himself and why not – Celtic received all seven home competitions they entered below him.
Other than Rangers being an assuredly higher geared up rival, the panorama hasn’t altered that a lot. The high flight is just one membership completely different to 2018-19, his final season. Ross County change Hamilton Accies. A quirk is that Rodgers should wait to style his first expertise of Tannadice.
Dundee United weren’t in the high flight in his first spell right here and are once more absent. He mentioned he was trying ahead to returning to some acquainted venues and “battling with the media, that was always good fun”. The media may not be his greatest downside. It’s the membership’s own followers, notably the hardcore. No one disrespects Celtic, is their uncomplicated view of life. Rodgers was one of their own and so his departure edged in direction of the Mo Johnston finish of the scale charting unacceptable exits.
It’s not the view of the majority, one contends. Alan, a fan since attending a pleasant towards Arsenal in the early 1990s, is extra sensible. “It was a bitter pill at the time,” he mentioned. “But the guy is here to win football matches. These things happen in football. You saw the level of managers being quoted as coming in, there was nowhere near the calibre Brendan Rodgers brings.”
The Green Brigade lately tweeted out a photograph of the banner unveiled at Tynecastle Park the day after Rodgers left for Leicester in a seeming reaffirmation of their view that he had “traded immortality for mediocrity”. It was all, in accordance with Alan, “getting very petty”.
No one got here out on a gray day in Glasgow yesterday to protest, which appeared to say one thing. Celtic TV presenter Gerry McCulloch thanked the followers for his or her persistence when introducing Rodgers at simply earlier than 6pm. “He’s been a very busy man but, when he heard you were all here, he wanted to come out and speak to you,” he advised them. Rodgers very intentionally prevented saying sorry for leaving Celtic – certainly, he had already advised reporters he had no regrets – but he did apologise for hurting the followers.
Rodgers’ assignments yesterday introduced a distinct problem to the first interview he had given since his return on the membership’s own tv channel. Supporter discord had not been broached amid extra on-message tales about lengthy lunches with skipper Callum McGregor in Majorca and how “natural” it felt being again in Glasgow.
“God bless you Brendan!” one fan known as out as he entered Celtic Park once more at round 3pm. “Okay,” he replied. He appeared barely discombobulated by the intense assault on the senses usually triggered by returning to a spot the place one has spent such a formative chapter. It will need to have felt a bit like returning to high school, with Rodgers forged as the barely chastened former star pupil.
There was much less brouhaha and perhaps round 12,700 fewer followers than when he was unveiled first time round in 2016, a pair of days after Hibs had received the Scottish Cup. So many turned up on that event that they needed to open a stand. They might have fitted yesterday’s turnout into one of the membership’s lounges.
The method of his exit clearly nonetheless rankles with some and the reality he very firmly said he had no regrets about leaving for Leicester City is not going to appease these already unimpressed by his re-appointment. Rodgers admitted a need to create some sort of redemptive arc knowledgeable his determination to return again.
“I hope I can still have (a good relationship) with the supporters,” he mentioned. “It’s natural that when I left, it was a sad moment. I certainly don’t regret it but what I do regret is the hurt it caused people. And that’s the very reason I’m sat here today.”
He returns with an FA Cup to his identify and an expanded household. His spouse Charlotte and their three younger youngsters – who have been all carrying the new Celtic away package with “Rodgers” on the again – sat just a few rows again at the first press convention for broadcast media.
Rodgers dealt with all of it with attraction and grace, as you knew he would. The age of Ange and his typically-clipped solutions is over.
Rodgers is again and, in accordance with him, Celtic are getting an improved model. “I’m a better manager than when I sat here seven years ago, and better, certainly, than four years ago,” mentioned the 50-year-previous. One suspects that he’ll must be.
