Unrelenting Rodgers will NEVER stop in pursuit of excellence
THE Scottish Cup wasn’t even out of his hands. Not a single Celtic supporter had left the stadium. And yet, even in that moment of triumph, Brendan Rodgers was already planning for the future and thinking about how to take matters up another notch.
If anything outlined the reasons why he has simply taken Celtic to a new level over the past two years, it was his remarkable post-match interview at Hampden Park.
This was what really struck me about the day. Just minutes after lifting the cup, his sixth trophy in two years, the Celtic manager was thinking about the losses, the draws and those performances which weren’t quite there at some points this season.
He said that it was his job now to push his players even harder next season. I thought that was an incredible thing to say in that moment.
Here you have a manager who has just rewritten football history but is already thinking about how they can improve next year. He still wasn’t entirely happy.
Other people might have basked in the success for a few weeks. Not him. He still wants better. That’s the standard he is setting. That’s what every other team in Scotland is up against.
I’m certain he will have awoken yesterday morning and focused on his plans for who’s in and who’s out, what’s happening next year and what the targets are. He’s consumed with the desire for his team to improve.
Look at the age of some of the key players in this squad — the likes of Kris Ajer, Kieran Tierney, Olivier Ntcham and Callum McGregor.
They are all young, fit, very athletic boys. And they will only get better.
If they can keep the nucleus of that squad together and add one or two, that belief they share will only get stronger.
The fact they’ve played together and won together so often is why they look so fluent. Everyone knows their jobs.
Rodgers has mentioned on a few occasions that he feels they are playing better football than last season because they have a better understanding.
People might question that as they have not been unbeaten this season. But he sees it on a day-to-day basis on the training ground and in matches.
He probably feels he doesn’t have to drill too much into them tactically any more. They just know where to be on the field, what happens if they go down to ten men, what happens if they change formation and what happens if they go a goal down.
That just comes from a complete understanding between manager, the coaches and the players.
When you’ve got a manager who wants to be more perfect than perfect, it’s a recipe for huge success.
He’s just got an extraordinary rapport with the supporters. No one needs to remind him of the importance of ten-in-a-row and the kind of legacy that would leave.
Maybe if you’d asked him when he first came up how long he’d stay, he’d maybe have thought two or three years. Now he might be looking at a five-year project.
If he can get a bit more success in the group stages of the Champions League, which is probably the only thing he’s not achieved, and starts to think about ten-in-a-row, at this rate he’ll end up having a statue outside Celtic Park.
His side are so far ahead of the domestic competition because, by and large, he’s improved all the players who were already there.
Saturday’s game was just the latest in a growing list of big matches they’ve dominated this season.
It’s become a bit of a habit. They’ve had a few lacklustre performances. They’ve lost four games in the league and drawn ten.
But, in the grand scheme of things, since the moment he walked through the door, their consistency when it really counts has been incredible.
In 120 competitive games over 24 months, the Hearts defeat is probably one game domestically when they’ve been really poor.
That level of consistency is the reason why they’ve now done the clean sweep twice for the first time in the history of Scottish football.
When required, they’ve got players in the dressing room who simply turn up and deliver.
Even the best Celtic managers — Martin O’Neill, Gordon Strachan and Neil Lennon among them — occasionally came a cropper in a cup. That’s why this achievement is sensational.
There are so many different factors that go into winning any game of football. All the build-up behind the scenes, who is available and the tactics. Once you cross that line, you certainly need to bring your A-game and hope you have that wee bit of luck in terms of offside and refereeing decisions.
But Celtic, under Rodgers, have managed to overcome pretty much everything that has been thrown at them. The level of consistency is now the stand-out achievement of this era.
What they’ve achieved is verging on something that’s almost impossible. But would you put your life savings on them not doing it again?