AIMING TO SOAR AMID VULTURES
Rodgers fights to build a side aware that richer clubs will eye his stars
FOR Celtic, Champions League football is a gateway to harmony. A means to an end. A cash windfall in the region of £30million a year. An enhanced sense of the club’s standing. Stability and security for the manager. A chance to keep hold of their best players.
‘We are trying to build something,’ admitted boss Brendan Rodgers. ‘But I understand the nature of it. The financial pull there will be for players.’
Scotland’s champions face Astana tonight, protecting a 5-0 lead from the first leg in Glasgow. Yet a place in the group stage of Europe’s blue-riband competition offers no protection against market forces. Celtic reap the benefits of UEFA prize money as a club, but players are more interested in No1.
Major clubs are already taking a close interest in Moussa Dembele. Burnley, meanwhile, are preparing a £10m move for central defender Jozo Simunovic, with Torino also interested.
Rodgers last night concluded a £1m deal for 20-year-old South African central defender Rivaldo Coetzee, and that’s likely to herald the exit of Erik Sviatchenko to Copenhagen.
An increased interest in players is the price of success, but the traffic will not be one-way.
Patrick Roberts will return on a one-year loan deal before the weekend clash with St Johnstone and Rodgers is also in the market for a striker, though that player will not be Arsenal’s Chuba Akpom.
A safe passage to the group stage allows Rodgers to make changes on his terms.
‘We qualified last year and hope to make the final step this year and that allows myself and the board to continue progressing the club forward because that’s the idea — constant improvement,’ he said. ‘There is always going to be riches from elsewhere.
‘With all due respect, even Neymar has left Barcelona for £198m. So that can happen, but what I’ve always tried to do and what I’m building and creating is a stronger team.
‘Individuals will flourish within it or improve within it and get better and may end up improving the conditions of their life, which is fine.
‘My job is to create a team and a group of players that, okay, if we lose one, that’s the way it works and the club will benefit. The player will go on and benefit and the club will move on.’
Suitors for Dembele have known for some time that Celtic would only countenance selling if they failed to reach the Champions League.
‘We don’t have a great need to sell anyone,’ added Rodgers. ‘That is the message. There is nobody really that we have to sell.
‘Managers and coaches looking from the outside in will think: “Wow, these players are playing for a big club, dealing with pressure and dealing well with it”.
‘If they see they can do that, they will know they’d be able to play for them. But we have no need to sell.’
This is what Champions League football does for a club. It provides insurance. It raises the value of their players.
Inevitably, some will see their future in England earning a salary in excess of £50,000 a week. Yet Rodgers insists none of his Celtic players has expressed a wish to leave.
‘There will always be that issue in terms of finance and money that they can be offered elsewhere,’ said the Northern Irishman. ‘But if any player ever leaves, then the buying club would have to buy. There are no cheap players out of Celtic.’
Talk of what happens when Celtic reach the Champions League ignores a salient point. They’re not there yet.
With a five-goal lead, failure would be unprecedented and catastrophic.
Yet the sight of stand-in central defender Nir Bitton limping off at Kilmarnock — and receiving treatment last night at training — was a reminder there’s a job still be done.
‘We’ll assess Nir in the next 24 hours. There’s nobody ruled out at this stage,’ said Rodgers. ‘This is a very unique situation, but our approach is very much the same as it always is.
‘We want to stay focused and treat the tie like it’s zero-zero.
‘We want a good result here. If you look at our European performances in the main away from home, we’ve gradually got better.
‘I think of Astana here last time. We drew. Then Monchengladbach. We drew. Man City, we drew, and then Rosenborg we win.
‘We’re creating a mindset, really, and no matter the conditions of the game, we want to perform well and finish the qualification phase with a positive.’
Supporters — and journalists — have already begun planning ahead. After countless meetings with Barcelona, the craving for a first clash with Real Madrid since 1980 is palpable. Yet Rodgers insists he hasn’t given possible group-stage opponents a thought. Not yet.
‘No, maybe on the plane back,’ he confessed. ‘But not now. I have more important things to think about.’