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Peak Brendan Rodgers has Celtic dabbling in the unforeseen and it's time to deal in their biggest asset – Hugh Keevins
Celtic have started to dabble in the unforeseen.
This is bad news for their Premiership rivals who know only too well what they are looking at so far as Brendan Rodgers’ side are concerned. Nobody saw it coming when Celtic took six goals off Aberdeen in the Premier Sports Cup semi-final at Hampden last weekend. And the only man I know who tipped Celtic to beat RB Leipzig 3-1 in the Champions League on Tuesday night was the radio caller who told me that would be the final score an hour before kick-off.
I can only hope he had a sensible wager. If it was bravado rather than belief then he still deserves a pay-out for having the courage of his convictions. But what price Celtic’s hierarchy now taking a punt on Rodgers’ future? The manager was rich in his praise of the players after Celtic delivered a display for the ages against their highly-rated German opponents. He went through the card in his menu of meaningful words to adequately describe his team’s performance.
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Courage. Charisma. Confidence. Vibrancy. Rodgers would have been entitled to throw in a congratulatory mention for himself – but modesty forbids and all that. The man who was told he needed to be more pragmatic in Europe after a seven-goal going-over from Borussia Dortmund has had the satisfaction of holding his nerve.
He has proven that rumours of his unsuitability for the elite level of the game were unfounded. Rodgers is the highest-paid manager in Celtic’s history but, whatever he’s getting, it’s arguably not enough going forward. Who, at the end of his current contract next season, could replace Rodgers and offer the same guarantee of domestic domination and European respectability?
It was Celtic’s extreme good fortune that he was available to fill the void when Ange Postecoglou departed for Spurs – and now he has reached peak Brendan. New contracts are being looked out to reward players for services rendered and to safeguard the club when the inevitable offers drop to spirit them away from Scotland.
Rodgers said he would see out every day of his deal when he arrived for his second stint as manager. But do Celtic know what comes thereafter? The club got £8million in compensation when Rodgers left for Leicester City in mid-season and created a division among supporters which he has now healed for himself on the back of games like the one against Leipzig.
Might some of the money from the bank account he has helped reach remarkable proportions now be devoted towards extending the manager’s contract? If a highly-valued player was at this stage of his contractual agreement with Celtic it would be normal for talks to have taken place concerning an extension.
Rodgers must surely come into the same category in that case. Success brings complications as well as kudos. Matt O’Riley was improved so much as a player by Rodgers that Celtic received the proverbial offer they couldn’t refuse from Brighton in the summer.
Others will inevitably follow, starting with Nicolas Kuhn if he can replicate Tuesday night’s form on a regular basis at home and particularly abroad. The manager regards the manipulation of players from one level to the next as an integral part of his skill set which, in turn, makes him the most valuable asset of all to employers.
Rodgers’ stock at Celtic Park has arguably never been as high as it is at present. His special relationship with Celtic’s de-facto owner Dermot Desmond has presumably never been better at the same time. The principal shareholder brought Rodgers back to the club in the first place because a seismic loss like
Postecoglou merited a seismic replacement. Desmond likes a winner and dedicates himself to seeing Celtic remain as the pre-eminent club in the country. On the basis that you fix the roof on your house while the sun is shining, might it be understandable if Desmond has had a pre-emptive word with his club’s most valued employee on where he sees his future at the end of next season?
No one is irreplaceable but some managers can do a convincing impersonation of disputing that is the case. Rodgers for one, I would suggest.
