Muzzy_Larsson

I reckon if that was the case Rodgers would have been very vocal about it, not shouting about it but veiled digs whenever he got the opportunity. Instead all he done last summer was was lyrical about the backing the club gave him. We'll never know for sure but Vestergaard and Bertrand are nailed on Rodgers signings. He name checked the former in his post match interview when we played them in the CL at Celtic park so not hard to jump to the conclusion there has been a long standing interest there where him and Congerton are concerned. Bertrand he also has a previous working relationship with. Both of those players nowhere near fit the profile of the type of players the club have identified in recent years, Soumare and Daka I'll give you, they do.

Because he's one dimensional, that's always been the case with him.

As shit as things may be at present I think that's actually going to be a blessing in disguise. He'd have made an absolute disaster of a rebuild and then any new manager that came in would be on a hiding to nothing.

This thing really annoys me that he has the gall to come out and say this. If he's 3+ years deep in a job and the absence of a single player throws his entire preferred game plan out the window then that's on him. Why doesn't anyone then respond to him with something like "is that perhaps a reflection on how recruitment has went at your time at the club?".

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that conversation if Top turned round and said something like, "well to be blunt it's you that's got us here, insisting we hold onto all our top players and giving them massive new contracts while at the same time pissing transfer funds and more wages up against the wall by signing players that probably 90% of which have been failures and you no longer trust to play." Why should Top give him more money to splurge given the evidence thus far? Like I said way at the start for Rodgers to be a success in terms of recruitment he had to work within the existing recruitment machine, which let's be frank was the envy of a lot of clubs all across Europe, so if he had left his ego at the door I'm sure that would have continued to work swimmingly. Soon as you give in to his whims and allow him to dictate recruitment it ends in disaster, it's been the same at all his clubs, it's not a big surprise. The writing was on the wall when he was allowed to bring in his crony Congerton.

It's a fair point but I don't think it tells the whole story. It's more where the club is now and where it's headed. Look at West Ham for example, they have similarly over the past three years punched above their weight, not to the same degree of success as Leicester but they look more equipped to sustain it and are continuing to improve their squad, etc. They might not sustain it of course but it's hard to say that they don't look better equipped to stay around 6th-8th for the next few seasons than Leicester do, as much as it pains me to say that. Leicester on the other hand look on a downward trajectory in the short term at least while Rodgers is around and the whole recruitment operation is in a state of deadlock due to him cluttering up the wage bill with dross that he no longer even trusts.

This gnarly, veiled, curt way he's coming across in press conferences is exactly the way he was also towards the end at Celtic. Don't think he's done so at Leicester yet but when he start's rolling off spanish phrases then the end is very near!

Aah the old "if Fofana leaves" release clause. The definition of mentally challenged there.

Few posts required yet!

Might be fitting I move this thread onto page 1000

Yeah most definitely. Rodgers is happy to blow smoke up the arse of the people above him when everything is rosy but when things veer off course a little he'll throw them under the bus to protect his own ego/reputation. At Celtic he'd start a sentence saying the board have been great and given me everything I've asked for then in the next breath say his hands were tied and he couldn't make us any better in Europe as he needed more money.

Has Rodgers signed anyone with premiership experience in his entire time at the club that has worked out?

It's his own fault the club aren't doing any business, he's bloated the squad and wage bill with crap that can't be shifted. Is it a coincidence that at both Leicester and Celtic the respective clubs have had their highest and crucially unsustainable wage bills under him.

Rangers get PSV or Monaco in the final CL qualifier should they get through against the Belgian side. Hoping they go out before that of course but if they don't keeping my fingers crossed they get PSV.

The appointment was terrible yeah as it was clearly evident what the club was getting, a charlatan who is shite at his job, all the warning signs were there from every club he was at previously. He's a large part of why the club can't basically do anything in the transfer market this summer.

The biggest failure in recruitment in the last few years has been letting Congerton anywhere near the club.

I may being a bit idealistic and I know players must be sacrificed in order to get the funds required to freshen things up but Maddison and Fofana, the ones with the reported interest would be the 2 I'd most want to keep and that would be hardest to replace imo.

Our full stadium tifo yesterday...

Feels like a lazy signing/replacement to me, far better goalkeepers out there if you look close enough. This would be another signing that worries me in the sense of Rodgers having too much control in terms of recruitment again.

Yeah think as @Ric Flair alluded to now though it's focused on wages to turnover ratio now as opposed to overall losses as was the case before.

Good post. Celtic find themselves in this position a lot with players that don't work out, we basically end up lumbered with signings that don't work out as we pay them more than any interested clubs would be able to. What often happens is they get sent out on loan perpetually with the intention of having some of their wages covered. See guys like Hendry, Barkas, etc. The only way a pay off makes financial sense if a club wants them, the player wants to go and you can strike a deal for say 50% of their remaining contract and the new club can pick up the shortfall. Very few players are going to move nowadays with the prospect of losing money.

It may have changed but it used to be over a rolling 3 year period I'm sure they done the FFP assessment.

Congerton not taking long in absolutely bastardising what was a club that had a very decent approach to recruitment. Tavares is absolute dog meat.

I can see why you may think that but it's a hard one to tell, he's never played that deep role and his strengths are scoring, assisting and creating, I'm not sure how suited he'd be to being a playmaker who has to dictate the tempo as one of the few criticisms of him thus far is that he can drop out the game at times. He's still young of course so would hope/expect that disipates as he develops. As you allude to Maddison is the more apt comparison I reckon.

Ability wise I'd say yes, athletically I'd say no, he's probably not quick or nimble enough to do himself justice there, especially in the EPL.