RODGERS IN ROW OVER ROGIC CAP CALL
Parkhead boos pleas with Arnold to let Wizard of Oz Tom play in Glasgow derby before going off on Asian Cup duty
GRAHAM Arnold was granted face-time with Brendan Rodgers on his recent visit to Scotland and came away unexpectedly with an extra player in Hibernian’s Martin Boyle.
The Australia head coach must have been singing the praises of Celtic, Hibs and Scottish football when he returned Down Under. It might have been so, so different.
Whether Arnold meant to or not, and let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, not mentioning to either Rodgers or Neil Lennon that under FIFA rules his Scottish-based players – Tom Rogic of Celtic and Hibs trio Mark Milligan, Jamie Maclaren and now Boyle – could be called up on Christmas Eve, meaning they would miss three Premiership matches, was tactically a clever move.
Whether he would have been helped as much if Rodgers and Lennon knew that key players could be on the other side of the world as their teams faced three huge games is open to debate.
Goalposts were moved, as Lennon said yesterday, but only so much. As things stand, Australia will get their four players to join up before the Socceroos play in the Asian Cup, which takes place next month in the United Arab Emirates.
This has not gone down well at either Scottish club.
Rodgers was hardly ranting yesterday. That’s not his style. But it’s clear he can’t quite believe that Rogic, something of an Old Firm specialist, won’t be allowed to play one more game before joining up with his national squad for the Asian Cup.
“The latest is that, as we sit here, Tom is still due to travel to Dubai to meet up with them on the 27th [of December],” said Rodgers. “That would make him available for the Aberdeen game and not the Rangers game.
“We’re trying to find a solution to that, one that makes sense for both Celtic and Australia, because obviously the player wants to play, you know. He wants to play for Celtic, of course. He wants to play for Australia.
“On behalf of the boy, we have to fight to give him the chance to play. Because it doesn’t make sense that he can’t travel after the game on the 29th. There is still a week before their first game.
“And it doesn’t make sense for him to travel on the night of the 27th, then sit and not do virtually anything for a couple of days – and be sat in Dubai watching Rangers v Celtic, when he knows he could be playing in it.
“It’s not a good feeling for him, to meet up with the squad when he could be playing against Rangers, arrive on the morning of the 30th and still have a week’s preparation for the competition.”
Jordan, Palestine and Syria await Australia in a competition which, with every due respect, hardly has the prestige of a World Cup. Rodgers doesn’t want to deny his player the chance to play for his country next month but can’t understand what the benefit would be for Rogic to be kept out of one more game.
An email a few weeks ago alerted Celtic to the fact their Australian was wanted on December 24 by Australia, which was never going to happen, and Arnold kept schtum about the situation he surely knew was going to be an issue.
“I had Graham Arnold over here a number of weeks back, talking tactics and football,
had a really good conversation with him,” Rodgers revealed. “The whole idea was for him to come and build relations, you know?
“He met with Neil Lennon as well – and didn’t know they had a player until Lenny told them about Martin Boyle. Then all of a flippin’ sudden, Hibs are losing him!
“I don’t really want to go into private conversations. But I think they probably looked at their players in Europe and saw that, after the Boxing Day games, teams are a little bit staggered in terms of when they play. Some will play 27th, others on the 29th.
“But it has to be done individually. You can’t throw a blanket over everyone and say: ‘Right, this is the rule for anyone. We aren’t going to let anyone play.’
‘You might have to plan a bit more, you might need to look into it in more detail, in terms of individual plans for players. But surely the players shouldn’t suffer when there is no need, just to get everyone there at that point.”
“We got the paperwork through and sometimes these things are just a generic email, talking about when the player needs to go. Initially, they talked about Christmas Eve, I don’t think that was ever going to happen. So we look to address that. Thus far, it hasn’t happened.”
What the Australian FA claim is that it’s one rule for everyone. Rodgers sees things another way. He said: “I don’t believe that’s right. I don’t work like that here. We have a team ethos, of course, but every individual case is different.
“OK, you need to look at it and you need to analyse it. But I don’t think that works. If you look at the Spurs boy Son Heung-min, who plays for South Korea, they’re actually forfeiting the group games. I don’t think he’s meeting up with his country until about January 12!
“Because they’re allowing him to play for Tottenham, be there and come later.”
Rogic has been a sensational player for Celtic against Rangers. He scored in four different derby games last season. He is the one that Rangers, so far, have not been able to work out at all.
“Tom is a big player for us in big games,” said Rodgers. “You want your biggest players to play in this type of game. And Tom is DESPERATE to play in it.”
Another player who has risen for the big ocassion of late is Ryan Christie, who returns to the squad for today’s visit of Dundee and it is looking good for Odsonne Edouard to be fit for Aberdeen on Boxing Day.
“I have options with Ryan Christie back in the squad – he can play up front and there’s one or two others we can be flexible in how we play,” said Rodgers.
That, however, is where the Celtic manager’s flexibility ends. The next few days will be an interesting watch.