Muzzy_Larsson

I tend to agree and this is how it tends to work at most clubs who operate the transfer market successfully nowadays. The coach identifies the type of player he needs and the recruitment team are then responsible for finding who that player is.

That's the key point imo. If someone said Rodgers would relinquish all control of transfers and place that reponsibility in the hands of Rudkin and the rest of the recruitment team who have delivered so much in previous years then I could get on board with him staying on as part of what will be the evolution of a new side. I also think in that scenario there is a strong argument that he deserves that given the two fifth placed finishes and the FA Cup win. The huge elephant in the room that makes the above scenario unlikely however is Rodgers ego and how demanding he is. He'll want to exert a huge degree of influence over recruitment and that is not a good thing. There is no way I'd trust him to embark on a successful rebuild if he was given authority on identifyng the players required. Again, looking at his career in management thus far, he's by and large made a pig's ear of recruitment at several clubs.

Yeah not saying there will either tbh that's why I emphasised if it happens.

I don't ignore it, I just don't see it as a factor in terms of the original debate of Rodgers being hopeless in Europe, it's jsut minute detail and it doesn't change the landscape at all. No celtic fans expected him to make the last 16, that's not the issue, it was the pastings we got and how he approached it and how ultimately results were poorer than some of his predecessors with far less resources. Staying on the original point again, this poor track record in Europe is prevelant at the other clubs he's been at also, namely Liverpool and Leicester.

Playing devil's advocate to a point here but is waiting until it gets that bad perhaps a risky approach. Sort of arrest the dangerous slide before it happens type thing. If it gets that bad of course.

I think your splitting hairs, you can dive so deep into the stats to suit most narratives, the reality is on more than one occassion Rodgers got us absolutely embaressed in Europe. I'm not saying Rodgers should have qualified, even had Lennon and Strachan not made the last 16 they still took some big scalps like beating the reigning European Champions at home, beating the likes of Barcelona, Man Utd, AC Milan. Rodgers most notable european result in his time at us was a draw at home to Man City. You try to defend how he performs in Europe but even Celtic aside his record at his other clubs in Europe is shocking at both Liverpool and Leicester. I get things are subjective but it's a really hard ask to try and describe Rodgers' overall performance in Europe as anything other than bad throughout his career thus far.

They're both poorer than Champions league winning AC Milan and champions league winning Man Utd (most of the same players won the CL in 2007), both sides we beat at home. Whereas PSG humped us 5-0 on our own doorstep and took 7 off us in Paris. They were also poorer than the Barcelona side Strachan's side faced in the last 16 that included Henry, Ronaldinho, Messi, etc, another side we fared well against. We're going round in circles a bit here but the crux of it is Rodgers record in Europe with Celtic, given the resources he had, in comparison to other managers was pretty poor and I'd be surprised if you found another Celtic fan who'd argue otherwise. It goes deeper than just the results too, his naievity and stubborness in Europe was a huge part of the issue, trying to play teams like Barcelona and PSG at their own game and getting utterly horsed. Other managers in the past in Europe at least realised they had to be more pragmatic and we weren't good enough to play these teams at their own game and this was probably why their results were a bit better.

Fully agree.

I don't see what difference this makes, even the first season Gladbach beat us with ease at home under Rodgers and we got utterly pasted by both PSG and Barcelona by 6 and 7 goals. None of what you say takes away from the fact Rodgers made on the whole a mess of it with us in Europe. The managers I mentioned and pretty much most Celtic managers in my lifetime have had a big scalp in terms of beating a top European side at Celtic park, the closest Rodgers came was a great draw with Man City at home in his first game then it was all pretty much downhill after that.

I'm not trying to argue the point that we've done much in Europe my point is merely we've had managers with far less resources than Rodgers who have done markedly better in Europe, it's pretty black and white that one. Rodgers was immensely successful at Celtic, domestically, again I'm not disagreeing with you there. I've said that countless times and he gave me some of my greatest memories as a Celtic fan and I was devastated when he left. All that said though, his record in Europe just in comparison to other Celtic managers, with less resources, with far more workmanlike teams on paper was pretty poor. If you look at that at all of his clubs, Liverpool, Celtic and Leicester he's underachieved at every single one of them in Europe, when patterns like that emerge you can't ignore them. Last season Leicester should have been reaching the Europa League semi-finals mimimum imo.

They did actually, Lennon had probably the best club side of all time to contend with in Barcelona, and managed to beat them. Strachan had Man Utd in the group, complete with Ronney and Ronaldo who were outright favourites and we beat them at Celtic park and were unlucky to lose 3-2 at Old Trafford. Strachan the other season also had AC Milan who were the Champions League holders, again we beat them at Celtic park. For perspective Man City or PSG have never won the Champions League at all. Also those two seasons Rodgers managed to inflict on us our record defeat at the Nou Camp, then went one better the next season and broke that record again as we got trounced in Paris, trying to pass the ball out from our own box against a front three of Mbappe, Cavani and Neymar. Those sides I mention had guys like Paul Telfer, Adam Matthews, Joe Ledley, Kris Commons, Paul Hartley, Barry Robson. I could go on. Rodgers had more resources relatively than any Celtic manager in history in Europe and performed tangibly worse than most of his counterparts in recent history.

Summer would've been his plan as that's when his stock was at his highest after the FA cup win. I think he'll have been pretty p!ssed off that never happened. Coming from someone who worked directly for him he was raging at Celtic when he was overlooked for the Arsenal job.

Not true that though is it. Even Neil Lennon got us to CL last 16, Strachan done it twice, both managers in relative terms who had far less finances to play with than Rodgers. Just comparing him to most other Celtic managers Rodgers record in Europe with Celtic was crap, as evidenced by him presiding over our two record defeats, telling us what we were doing was playing "without fear". In actual fact it was us getting utterly humped. Going wider than that another ex Leicester manager actually got us to a European final you know.

He would have but there were a number of managers who we could have appointed after he left that would have won us that 10th title. The issue with that was replacing him with someone like Lennon.

Exactly this. You can be gutted that he left and also aware of his shortcomings, they are not mutually exclusive. Rodgers is in a clutch of two or three of the best Celtic manager's I've seen in my lifetime, he brought great success domestically that made memories to last a lifetime. The bad was that he was horrendous in the transfer market and terrible in Europe as we suffered our two record defeats under him. The real issue is the bad in Scotland got swept under the carpet a fair bit as he was so successful domestically and the league is so weaker. In the EPL the league is stronger and wekanesses are more readily exploited, hence the more visible spotlight and heightened criticism of him. The criticisms of him latterly at Leicester are largely the same criticisms of him latterly at Celtic, but like I said it was more palatable for Celtic fans as we continued to enjoy domestic success despite him wasting money, getthing humped in Europe and the quality of football deteriorating.

I'll admit I thought we'd walk over them given they have lost half their team since the draw has been made. However they looked a really handy side and were organised superbly.

Of course there is, I don’t think I was being spiteful at all though. I’ve stuck up for Rodgers plenty on here also.

Hmm I think when the same obvious patterns emerge, across several clubs then I think it's pretty hard to ignore.

Got to say it, sensational performance and result for Rangers last night. Celtic, not so much

Embaressing that

Here's a list of all Rodgers signings at Celtic and you can judge for yourselves. Good: Dembele - Sensational. Not strictly a Rdogers signing as we'd been working on the deal for him since the January before Rodgers arrived. Rodgers developed him excellently though before royally mismanaging him and p!ssing him off. Sinclair - Amazing, especially the first couple of years. Toure - Done a job the first half of Rodgers' first season when we had barely any bodies at the back. Edouard - Superb, again though, it's obvious this was a Lawell signing, we brought him in out of nowhere on loan from PSG on the last day of the window and Lawell and Nasser have had a long standing friendship through sitting on the UEFA board together. Benkovic (LOAN) - Done great, was a rolls royce up here, although we tried to sign him permanently the summer before so I reckon he was put to Rodgers by Lawell. Timo Weah (LOAN) - Decent impact player in his 6 months here. The PSG signings were Lawell signings though due to his friendliness with Nasser, Weah and Edouard were down to Lawell. Bad: Comperr - 1 appearance, Was here 2 years, on 25k a week, played 80 mins in total. Congerton has taken him to most clubs he's been at in the past. Jack Hendry - Started crying on the pitch in one game. We sold a much better player in Sviatchenko than Hendry was. Tbf has carved out a decent career now for himself in Belgium. Dorus De Vries - Played 15 games, was a disaster, one Rodgers had at previous clubs Cristian Gamboa - Crap, 22 appearances over three years, maybe more. Eboue Kouassi - Signed for decent money in our terms, £3.5m, 22 appearances and again hung around for a few years not doing much. Johnny Hayes - 27 appearances, decent enough squad player it has to be said but was nowhere near it when everyone was fit. Kundai Benyu - 4 appearances, garbage. Olivier Ntcham - Appearances, 78, on his day a good player but that was once every ten games and after Rodgers left about once in every 30 games. Signed for £4.5m and was freed in the end up. Lewis Morgan - Appearances, 13, was never going to be good enough. Yousoff Mulumbu - 3 appearances, nuff said. Vakoun Bayo - Think Rodgers may have left before he made an appearance, he was crap anyway, made about 20 appearances, think he scored 1 goal that was then later awarded as an OG by DGP. Oliver Burke (LOAN) - How he made it as a footballer I'll never know. Charly Musonda (LOAN) - About half a dozen appearances, had ability but was largely mince. Daniel Arzani (LOAN) - Horse sh!t, always injured, although tbf he was a Lawell signing, pretty obvious that one given our long standing relationship with Man City/The City group Appearances are during Rodgers time at the club for clarirty.

Not sure who his agent is specifically but he's with Stellar Sports.

People are probably fed up with me saying this but again, massive parallels to his end at Celtic and falling out with Lawell over transfers. He did have a bit of a case in point at Celtic as it was our own fault that we missed out on McGinn and Schar when both players wanted to sign and were massive value at £7m combined. That said, I can also understand Lawell's position in this sense also. Rodgers, despite having the biggest wage bill in our history insisted that it would take a lot more money for us to be a consistent and possibly last 16 CL team. Fine, he was probably right, but the legitimate issue Lawell probably had was that he'd given him and Congerton significant transfer funds and they'd wasted it on a bunch of guys who couldn't threaten the first team so he was within his rights to try and bring transfers back under his control. The problem at Celtic was that Lawell was the de facto director of football/head of recruitment which was in itself a problem and we should have someone with the proper credentials in this role sitting between him and Rodgers. Congerton I guess you could say was meant to be that guy but he was an absolute charlatan. One example of how useful Congeton was that he was apparently annoyed we couldn't match Brighton's offer for Neil Maupay, talk about not understanding the constraints of your role and not being able to identify players within your budget. It seems like a pretty identical situation with Rudkin now, although in this case I don't think Rodgers has a leg to stand on as because from the outside it looks Rudkin is actually competent at his job and the club have got Rodgers the players he wants. He himself was quite public on this as recently as the summer so it's a bit rich now saying he doesn't have enough imo.

Yeah there's a lot of truth in that in terms of the players Rodgers inherited. That was his biggest achievement, turning a bunch of rudderless, mediocre players into world beaters, in a scottish domestic sense anyway. The bad part of his tenure, as has been the case at all of his clubs, was ripping apart our previously successful transfer model and demanding total control of transfers and bloating our squad with players who never threatened to displace guys who had carried the first team for years. Proof was in the pudding on that one as we never sold a single player on for profit that Rodgers and Congerton were responsible for signing in their time at the club. It's all eerily similar to now at Leicester in that he's relying on largely the same core players as when he arrived. I'm not being pedantic but I don't agree with they had started to make ground quick under Gerrard. If it weren't for covid stopping the season early when we won 9IAR there was a real possibility that Gerrard would have been sacked or have been mutually consented at the end of that season, Rangers fans had started to get on his back in a big way. Rangers absolutely folded that season and the last game before covid hit they lost 1-0 to Hamilton at Ibrox and there was serious pressure on him. He was up here three years and won one trophy, any other Rangers manager who wasn't called Steven Gerrard wouldn't have gotten away with one trophy in three years. He had an asbolute open goal at a treble last season and made a mess of it and didn't even get to Hampden in any of the cup competitions. I get the one trophy he did win was a big one to stop us getting 10 in a row so kudos to him for that and if you take a step back you can say he met the one big objective set for him when he became Rangers manage. I don't buy the whole argument that Rangers were in this great mess and Celtic were this juggernaut as 6 weeks before Rodgers arrived Rangers defeated us in the Scottish cup semi final. If you actually look at both managers net spend throughout their time in Glasgow Gerrard has actually spent more on transfer fees than Rodgers. It's down to personal opinion but Steven Gerrard doesn't come close to being as good a manager as Rodgers for me and had he remained in Glasgow I doubt Gerrard would even have won that single trophy. Also if you watch Gerrard's teams then you'll quickly realise they are pretty turgid to watch, he's by and large a pragmatist in his approach, even Rangers fans would say this a lot. I know Rodgers football has died a death at the moment at Leicester but the first year or so at both Celtic and Leicester his sides played some great football which was a joy to watch.