BUSINESS AS HE PLOTS LEGACY
have now ticked that box which was an improvement on last season and Brendan has managed to progress the club.
“So next season’s target in terms of progression would be for Celtic to reach the knockout stages of the Champions League.”
Stubbs concedes that the more successful Rodgers is at Parkhead the more suitors will come calling and that Celtic will just have to put up with the constant speculation.
Only last week Rodgers was also being touted as a potential successor to Arsene Wenger at Arsenal should the Gunners pull the trigger on the under-pressure Frenchman.
Stubbs said: “Whenever you do well it is a sign of your success that you are always going to be linked with clubs. That will be the case with Brendan and he will be linked with a whole host of clubs moving forward. Whie he keeps winning games his stock will continue to rise.
“He’s being linked with Southampton one minute and in the same breath he has been linked with a switch to Arsenal. If it was an Arsenal then I would be more concerned if I was a Celtic fan.
“It’s only natural that the inevitability of success means that you will always get linked with a move away.
“All the top managers who are successful get linked with the big clubs. Celtic and their supporters will have to get used to this kind of thing.” Stubbs believes the one final ingredient in all of the speculation is timing as Rodgers will know when the time is right to exit Celtic Park. He said: “Timing is everything and Brendan more than anybody will know that. I’m probably not the best qualified to speak about such matters after what happened when I left Hibs for Rotherham. “You get to a stage where you do think, ‘How can I top this?’ “Brendan will leave Celtic one day and that is a conversation that he will have sometime in the future but certainly not right now.”