Rodgers gives vote of confidence to rival boss
Sacked by Liverpool not long after coming close to winning the club the league, the Parkhead manager knows to take nothing for granted, but he believes the critics should lay off Jim McIntyre. Graeme McGarry reports
CELTIC manager Brendan Rodgers isn’t likely to have anyone calling for his head any time soon, but he has been in such a position before. Indeed, he was sacked as Liverpool boss in October 2015, a little over a year after coming agonisingly close to landing the club their first top-flight title since 1990.
So, if anyone knows the truth of the old adage “pride comes before a fall” in football management, it is Rodgers. It is perhaps of little surprise then to hear him speaking in defence of the man who will be in the opposite dugout to him today at the Global Energy Stadium.
Jim McIntyre, who was a player at Reading when Rodgers was on the coaching staff, of course, led County to League Cup glory just last season, finishing the campaign in sixth place in the league and landing the Scottish Football Writers’ Association Manager of the Year prize.
A downturn in results this term, though, has led to relegation worries and growing pressure on McIntyre from a sizeable section of the County support, but Rodgers thinks the critics should get off his back.
“You’re not always going to have success and, when it doesn’t quite go as you want it and there’s a little dip, you need that support, that help,” Rodgers said. “Thankfully, it looks like he’s got a very good chairman there who’s done an outstanding job. I spoke to him a couple of times since I’ve been up there and the ground is really impressive.
“He clearly supports the managers and, OK, it might not be as good this term as last but one thing is for sure – if the season doesn’t pan out how you want, you’re even more determined to make sure to do well the next season.
“So, give the guy a chance. It’s not all linear. You set landmarks and you have setbacks and they come hand in hand.
“Jim created a landmark by winning the League Cup. There have been some setbacks this year but it’s OK. He’s clearly shown he’s a good manager.
“I’ve a lot of time for him. He was a good player at Reading. He had a couple of injuries but he’s one of the boys that Tommy Burns brought in and the one who stayed the longest.
“His teams are hard to beat. Jim will have his team really, really well organised [today]. They know what they’re fighting for in these last few games and they’ll see every home game as an opportunity for them, but we focus on our own game and again look to get the result.”
THE last time Celtic went to Dingwall, they ran out 4-0 winners, but the emphatic nature of the scoreline did not accurately reflect the game. Celtic scored three late goals to put a sheen on a result that looked in doubt until near the end. However the resilience of his side taught Rodgers a thing or two about their character on the night.
He tinkered with the line-up and formation for the first time that October evening, and the way his men saw the game through helped to cement the relationship between coach and players.
“That hopefully showed them that I trusted them,” Rodgers said. “I said at the time that if I was to find out what these players were like – because a lot of them, I didn’t know – it wasn’t to see what they would do in front of 60,000 at Celtic Park. I needed to see what they would do at a place everybody had talked about – Dingwall in the middle of the week. How do you cope?
“And they showed they coped very well. Some of them took a wee bit of time but that’s the nature of how it’s going to be with us, like Kilmarnock last weekend. They’d never played a back five. It’s been 4-4-2 and 4-4-1-1 – and they start with a five. So, we have to be patient and if the game doesn’t come to us early we have to know that our game, our intensity and speed will hopefully wear teams down. Whoever we play, games as always tough.”
Those words may sound hollow coming from a manager who has taken his side this far without tasting defeat on the domestic scene, but Rodgers stresses it has been a taxing season not only for his players, but for him too. His boundless energy and enthusiasm set the tone around Celtic Park and their Lennoxtown training base, so he would be forgiven for taking any opportunity to get away from it all.
One thing he will never do, though, is risk Celtic missing out on a player by turning his phone off, after he almost did so earlier in his career.
“There are periods of course when you can get away if you manage it right and delegate your work,” he said. “But you can’t just turn your phone off and go away.
“Once I nearly lost a player because I was halfway up Mount Kilimanjaro and had no signal. We [Swansea] got to the play-offs and we won, and when I came back, Neil Taylor was nearly signing for Newcastle because they couldn’t contact me on the road to the top of Kilimanjaro. So, I always make sure I have a good signal.
“Obviously the pre-season is minimal. When you are a leader, the two things you must have above everything else are energy and happiness. Those are the two things that drive an organisation, and as a leader, you have to have that.
“I don’t have much time to recharge my batteries. But don’t worry, I’ll be fully charged up and ready. I won’t need seven months off like the last time, I’ll be ready to come back.”