Reaction to Brendan Rodgers' appointment at Celtic

Brendan Rodgers is back as Celtic manager for a second time on a three-year contract. Good afternoon, Mark Benstead. Good afternoon once again, Nick. Yeah, Brendan Rodgers will return to the club to take charge of them again when the season gets underway. He'll speak to the media a little later this week, but how will his return be welcomed by supporters and those connected with the club? Let's get the thoughts now of a former Celtic player. Mark Wilson has joined me here at Celtic Park. Well, first of all, what are Celtic getting by bringing Brendan Rodgers back? Well, I think they're getting an elite manager. I don't think there's any question about that. I know he's fresh out of the Premier League and he lost his job for a reason, but when you saw the work he did with Leicester, leading him to FA Cup success just outside the top four on a couple of occasions, you think of the billions of pounds that are spent to get teams challenging for that top four, and Brendan Rodgers almost got there. So no doubt about his credentials, a top-class manager, and I think the Celtic fans will be delighted that he's here. How would you gauge the mood about his return in terms of the Celtic supporters? Because his departure back in February 2019 did upset some. Frosty, probably. I think that first press conference he gives is going to be the all-important one because that really will set the tone. What he says in that will resonate with the Celtic fans. The Celtic fans have to understand that that's just the landscape we're in. In Scotland, if a manager is successful at this club, they are going to be poached from the English Premier League, and Brendan Rodgers was no different. Andrew Postacoglu was no different, and it will happen again if Brendan is successful here. So I don't think anyone should be surprised with that, but I think as soon as he starts winning, he brings a certain style of football to the club, I think the fans will perhaps forget what went on in the past. He's been announced on a three-year deal. That's sort of out of kilter with what has been done recently. Generally, it's been a 12-month rolling contract. Do you think that's significant? It certainly is. I think it will mean a lot to the supporters, seeing the commitment, one, from Brendan Rodgers, but also the football club, because it's quite unusual for Celtic to award a manager such a lengthy contract. I think it shows that there is a plan in place to be successful, not only domestically, but on the European stage, and that takes time to build. Although Brendan Rodgers is inheriting a pretty good squad here that Postacoglu has left behind, he'll want to improve it, he'll want to put his own stamp on it, and he'll want to progress this club on the European front. The Celtic statement also underlines the fact that the backroom staff are staying in place. Again, is that significant, the fact they've been so detailed in outlining the fact that all the coaches will stay in place? Well, I think so. Whenever there's a managerial change, I think there's so much uncertainty about football clubs when you can just change one piece of that. It certainly helps. And it also helps that Brendan Rodgers knows a lot of the staff that's been in before. Obviously, John Kennedy has been here before. Even down to the youth side, with Stephen McManus and Darnley Day being about the club for a long time, and with Gavin Strachan, Harry Cuell, well, we've seen what a success they have been to different managers. So the continuity is there. It just needs Brendan to put his own stamp on it and what he believes this team should play like. We've seen in the past it's pretty attractive, and at the end of the day, it's a winning formula, and that's all that matters. If you win here, then the fans will forget everything in the past. Right at the end of the statement, there are a few quotes from Dermot Desmond, the majority shareholder. He says everyone will be there to support Brendan Rodgers, including the board. How crucial is that? Because one of the frustrations for Brendan last time was perhaps a lack of resource to make Celtic competitive in the Champions League. Yeah, we heard murmurs of that, that Brendan really wanted to progress this side, to challenge at the top table, and it just wasn't possible. But he's coming to the club, but it's a different landscape now. No Champions League qualifiers. He knows he's straight into the group stage. He knows the transfer kitty that he will have, and maybe that's why this seems to have rumbled on. Maybe that's what the negotiations were. Which direction of travel is the club going? Is it somewhere that they can challenge in Europe? And I think he's got the assurances that that will be the case. The interesting thing will be, well, one, how much does he get? But how much does he think he needs to spend on this squad? Very, very good squad, a lot of good young players, linked with all sorts of different clubs. Does he think he needs to add a lot, or can he improve the players that are already here? What will he have learned from previous European exploits here? Because there were a couple of drubbings in those first two Champions League campaigns he had. Maybe he'll be a bit more defensive, but we said that about Ansh Postakoglu. He went toe-to-toe with the big guns, and he invariably ended up losing. But Brendan had a particularly tough draw when he was in the Champions League. So the Champions League, it all depends what names come out of the hat, who you're up against. If you've got a realistic chance of going toe-to-toe with him, if you get some of the big guns then, then of course you've got to look at a more defensive approach. But it'll be interesting to see how he develops this side. We spoke about Postakoglu's style, how it was eye-catching, how those players have adapted to it. Will Brendan Rodgers continue that, or will he rip it up and create something of his own? That'll be interesting. I was going to say, what would you envisage he will do? Because there is a distinctive way of playing under Ansh Postakoglu, it has certain quirks that are different to the way that Brendan would play. Do you think he will not try and fix what wasn't broken, or will he look to try and put his stamp on it completely? I think he's got to look to put his stamp on it. I mean, remember, first time around his football was attractive. The Celtic fans loved it. It was much more possession-based than what Postakoglu's side was. But it's a hard thing to rip up the success that Ansh Postakoglu left behind. But I think any manager, any elite manager, has got their own way of thinking, and I think he'll want to come in and put his own stamp, maybe just tweak a few things. But as long as it's a winning formula, then the fans won't mind. Possession-based, a lot of playing out from the back. Remember back in the day, he took Craig Gordon out the side because he couldn't play out from the back well enough. Eventually, Craig got his place back. What does that mean for Joe Hart? Joe Hart, fabulous goalkeeper. Perhaps that isn't his strength, though. It certainly isn't his strength. I think we've saw that over the last couple of years here in Scotland. That's probably the one weakness of his game. He's been a terrific addition for Celtic, because a real problem position. But that's why players get anxious when new managers come in. No matter what they've done under previous managers, other guys have different ideas, and Joe Hart may have to spend a long time on the training ground working with the ball at his feet if he's going to fit into this Brendan Rogers style. Just finally, to return it to the matter of him being accepted or not accepted by fans, by and large, I think most are coming round to it, but there are still some that remain frosty, as you say. What do you think they'll want him to say when he speaks for the first time later this week? Well, I genuinely think some fans want him to come out and say sorry and apologise. I don't think that's ever going to be the case, and I don't think he has anything to apologise for. He was a manager who wanted to progress his career in the richest league in the world. But I think they want to hear assurances that he's here for the long term. I know things can change quickly in football, but they want to hear that he's got a plan to take this club forward in Europe and spend some time doing it, not just jump ship at the first opportunity. And I think this time around, if an opportunity had to come up pretty quickly, I think he would turn it down, because he realises what a special club this is. Just in terms of the title race, it adds an extra dynamic into it, doesn't it? A new manager with a pedigree returning to this league, but a manager as well who will know his opposite number across the city well, because Michael Bale was part of the youth set-up at Liverpool initially when Brendan Rogers was the Liverpool manager. Yeah, of course. It's also a nice little side story going on there, but that's why it's so important for the Celtic board to get this one right, and I think they deserve tremendous credit for the speed that they've worked in. It was only two weeks ago that Ancelotti was here celebrating the treble, and they've moved swiftly to get a man who can deliver success, and they're going to need it, because Michael Bale is building something different at Rangers, and it's going to be a really competitive league we're seeing this year. Mark, really appreciate you tying in the thoughts of the former Celtic defender Mark Wilton on the news that Brendan Rogers is to return as a Celtic manager for a second spell.