Rodgers still has fears for his job
‘No manager is safe in the modern game’
IF Brendan Rodgers tumbled head first into the River Clyde, the evidence of the last 12 months points to an inevitable conclusion. He would climb out bone dry with a prize salmon in each pocket.
The first Celtic manager to end a league season unbeaten in 120 years, Rodgers is only the third after Jock Stein and Martin O’Neill to win a domestic Treble.
The new four-year contract he was awarded already looks like money in the bank.
Sportsmail was forced into a second take, then, when he proclaimed yesterday: ‘I am not secure in my job. After an experience has gone, I am looking over my shoulder. I can never rest.’
Insecurity is the force which drives many of life’s high achievers. Fear of failure is normal but, in Rodgers (below), it feels misplaced. As Celtic manager, he has barely put a foot wrong.
His decision to field 24-year-old son Anton as a trialist against BW Linz in midweek sat uneasily with many, but last season’s achievements has created wriggle room.
When a manager has a Treble and an unbeaten season on his CV, he can push buttons that his predecessors would not touch with a bargepole. Ahead of his second season in charge, the status and power base of Rodgers now looks unassailable. Yet the man himself is having none of it. ‘Am I secure? No chance,’ he declared. ‘Not in the modern game. Even here. ‘This is new football, it’s totally different. Look at (Claudio) Ranieri, it’s modern football.’ There’s no need to cite Ranieri’s crucifixion at Leicester. Rodgers has already witnessed how fickle football can be at close quarters. He was a Steven Gerrard slip away from winning the English title with Liverpool in 2014. Their first since 1990. His reward for coming so close was an LMA Manager of the Year trophy and a new four-year contract. Within a year-and-a-half, he was gone, dismissed after a run of one win in nine — and just an hour after drawing with Everton in a Merseyside derby. ‘As a manager, you either walk on water or you’re the devil,’ he explained. ‘That could be within the space of two days. ‘I don’t get too carried away when we win, or too disappointed when we lose. ‘We are just very focused on winning. We never plan to lose. We want to win, because if you don’t, then you lose focus. ‘There’s always something in modern football. I said it last season. We were 1-0 down to St Mirren at half-time and there was banging on the dugout glass. ‘There is a different mentality now. You look
at the longevity of the managers, it’s very tough. That’s why you can never be comfortable and that has to feed through to the players.
‘That’s the fear — but it’s a positive fear. I meet lots of Celtic supporters and quite a lot of them will say: “You’re doing well — at the moment”.
Rodgers and Celtic will hit turbulence eventually. As soon as next month, perhaps, when Celtic seek to negotiate the lottery of Champions League qualification once more.
Yet the waters of the Scottish Premiership are less choppy than the English Premier League. Another unbeaten season is unlikely, but not impossible.
‘When we came in this season, we said to the players what was done last season was amazing,’ added Rodgers.
‘But let’s not say it’s a once-in-alifetime achievement. What makes you think we can’t do it again?
‘The target is to win every game. What we have done is celebrate the success, but we are back even hungrier and more ready than last year.
‘It has been brilliant. We want to have friendships for life. We’ll all be (friends) when we leave — but it’s about really making our mark while we are here.
‘The best time to capitalise on success is the present.
‘You must be ruthless. You can’t go soft. There’s no point in talking about being ruthless after you’ve lost eight games. It’s too late.
‘There is a time to be ruthless and that is why we are ready to go again.
‘You have to look to be better all of the time and I see that here. It’s important to have humility, but I also see the backs are straighter, the shoulders are up. That’s what we want.’
The adjective most commonly applied to Celtic last season was relentless.
The Rodgers tenure began with a humiliating 1-0 defeat to Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar 12 months ago. It was, in every sense, a false alarm.
Asked to compare the readiness for a likely clash with Linfield to the state of readiness last year, he said: ‘It’s night and day. I was watching the players as they came in and they are fit, they are sharp and it’s a case of topping up.
‘We have introduced elements to them but they are in a brilliant place. Whenever you measure them coming back you see their body fat levels, body composition. It’s what I expect it to be for top athletes.
‘The level of training has been first class and it will be interesting when you speak to Jonny Hayes to hear what he thinks about coming in to this level. These matches sometimes trip you up and I know the words that were used after that Red Imps game.
‘Games like that happen and I needed to find a solution and solve a problem. The pitch and the heat was an issue — but it was clear I needed to look at issues.
‘It wasn’t an opportunity for me to condemn the players. It wasn’t going to be simple to solve but it was what it was. It was a freakish result but we knew we’d get better. We didn’t get carried away with us being written off.
‘It was about us dealing with pressure and looking at working better and better, which is what happened as the season went on.’
Reaching the Champions League group stage remains a fraught, nervous lottery.
Yet this time last year Rodgers had little option but to field players like Eoghan O’Connell, Saidy Janko and Darnell Fisher.
Stuart Armstrong had yet to return to the starting XI.
So Celtic are better prepared for what lies ahead this year than they were last.
‘Lots of players have improved,’ said Rodgers. ‘I think there is a clear level of confidence in how they operate.’
A confidence which suggests Brendan Rodgers has no need to fear for his job at Celtic. Not yet.