Qualification the solitary outcome for Rodgers to repay board
BRENDAN Rodgers last night thanked his paymasters for their unstinting support over the past three months — and vowed to repay them by reaching the group stage of the Champions League.
The former Liverpool manager has so far brought in four players who headed his summer wishlist — Kolo Toure, Moussa Dembele, Scott Sinclair and Dorus de Vries.
The Northern Irishman is still seeking another addition although that seems unlikely to happen before the play-off with Hapoel Be’er Sheva on Wednesday.
Rodgers, however, says he’s more than happy with the support he has received to date from chief executive Peter Lawwell and powerbroker Dermot Desmond.
And he feels defeating the Israeli champions to reach the group stage of the competition for the first time in three years would be the most fitting means of reciprocating.
‘I’m feeling good,’ said Rodgers. ‘I think we’ve done everything we possibly could. I don’t think we could have done any more.
‘The club has given me great support. In all fairness, when I took the job I said I would assess the team.
‘The team was Scottish champions and I had to be fair to them and assess the players before I decided what I needed.
‘You have to give huge credit to Peter, the board and Dermot for backing me to get the players I wanted to get in.
‘We have arrived at the point where there’s still a lot of improvement to come but we have shown good signs that the team can play at the tempo and with the technique I want.
‘We get to Wednesday in a really good position. It’s the final step and it’s a big step we need to take.’
The acquisition of Nottingham Forest keeper de Vries, who played for Dunfermline before crossing paths with Rodgers at Swansea, puts Craig Gordon’s place under direct threat.
Hired to lift the club after two indifferent years under Ronny Deila, Rodgers has embarked upon a policy of recruiting players for his first team as opposed to his squad.
The fact only four players have been signed has raised eyebrows but the Northern Irishman attributes that to the quality of player he has inherited.
‘I’m pleasantly surprised,’ he explained.
‘I saw the games towards the end of the season and the team was suffering after the Rangers game and whatnot. The team wasn’t in a good place.
‘When I took the job, I looked forward to see how they would develop and cope with what I wanted.
‘I’ve been pleasantly surprised from a positive perspective. The players have bought into what we are doing.
‘You could see that even a young team against Inter Milan had the confidence to get on the ball and take on Inter Milan and create chances — and I might not have thought I had that when I first came in.
‘Now we have a mentality at the club of dominance, of wanting to be aggressive and press and we play without fear.
‘I still felt the players needed help and needed to bring a different tempo to the game, but they have done that.
‘Now there’s more hard work to do.’
Seeking to reduce injury risk ahead of Wednesday’s first leg, Rodgers took a shadow squad to face Inter in Limerick on Saturday.
Despite going down by two goals to a full-strength Inter side, the Celtic manager was buoyed by what his players produced.
‘That was a good exercise and I thought the players acquitted themselves very well,’ he continued.
‘I’m now looking forward to Wednesday and we arrive at it with a bit of confidence.
‘Hopefully, we can win the game and take some sort of advantage to the second leg.
‘I thought a number of them did very well. It’s been hard for many of them because when you are flipping between competition and preparation, it’s hard for players to get 90 minutes.
‘I had to be fair to these boys and play them and the ones left behind were trained by me on Saturday morning.
‘I thought the younger ones did very well against top-quality opposition. ‘Ryan Christie was excellent, Liam Henderson was very good. I’ve been talking to Liam about improving tactically. Technically, he’s very good and demands the ball, which I love in a player. ‘Tactically, we’ve tried to improve his positioning and against Inter you could see he can play the game really well. ‘The two full-backs (Saidy Janko and Emilio Izaguirre) played against Motherwell and to come in and play against Inter was also very good. All round it was good.’