”For me, whatever I do in the rest of my life and my career, to have managed Celtic is the ultimate, for me. I don’t see Celtic as a stepping stone, I want to be here as long as I can.” (September 2016)
”There is not a place I could be in this world right now where I’d be happier in my football life and personal life. This is Celtic – this is one of the great, iconic clubs of the world.” (April 2017)
”I woke up here on a Monday morning as the manager of Celtic (On being linked with Arsenal job), and I’m in the best job in the world. Believe it or not, the sky is blue here in Glasgow, I absolutely love it here.
“I’m so happy here at Celtic. I’m in a job I love, it’s a huge club with big expectancy and big pressure. There’s no doubt, I would love to work in the Premier League again one day, but I’m hopefully going to be coaching for another 20-odd years so it’s no time soon.” (April 2018)
These are some of the comments which were made by Brendan Rodgers during his stint at Parkhead. Rodgers still had a few years left on his contract before he decided to jump ship to join Leicester City. That Leicester City who don’t have much to play for at the moment as they are relatively safe from relegation and are more or less guaranteed a mid-table finish.
There is no doubt that Celtic fans have the right to be angry given the timing of the departure. After all, they were chasing a ‘treble treble’, and some fans even believed that Rodgers would see them through their dream of 10 in a row. Well, he isn’t even here to see the 8th.
Given the above comments, the fans have every right to feel betrayed as Rodgers kept on insisting that he is here to stay given the love he had for the club. The story sounds eerily similar to most of the relationships where the guy ends up over-committing to the girl but jumps ship when a beautiful and a much more financially well off maiden arrives in his life.
One could have understood if Rodgers had taken the plunge for joining a club like Chelsea midway through the season. If he would have waited for a job like Chelsea, then it would have made sense to join an English heavyweight from his career’s point of view.
Maybe Rodgers didn’t believe in himself that much and thought that he couldn’t have done much better than Leicester at the moment. To be fair, he could be right as the Foxes can be termed as one of the best teams outside of the top 6 (The current table doesn’t show that). There is a school of thought that Rodgers needs to succeed at a mid-level Premier League club before he gets a chance to manage a heavyweight club as he crumbled when he was with Liverpool.
However, there shouldn’t be any excuse for leaving the club midway through the season and especially when there is still a lot to play for. The Northern Irish manager could have waited until the summer and left on a high by delivering the ‘treble treble’.
