It wasn’t quite Gordon Strachan’s infamous rant about fans who drink Kestrel and have ‘devil dugs’, but the timing and tone of Brendan Rodgers’ post-match comments at the weekend has certainly put the XL Bully among the pigeons.
You may think that the aftermath of a pretty routine Sunday afternoon stroll past St Mirren at Celtic Park was a strange time for Rodgers to have a bit of a bite back at his club’s supporters, or put some of them down for not ‘understanding football’.
Then again, you would also have to acknowledge that such a match was a strange time for grumbles from the stands towards the team, particularly with Celtic extending their lead at the top of the Premiership by 13 points with that win, while also having tucked the League Cup into the trophy cabinet already and with them ticking along rather nicely in the Champions League.
The missing context of course is the abject defeat to Rangers that preceded the St Mirren game, with the manner of the loss seemingly leading to a flare up of the prickliness between a section of the Celtic support (mainly, the Green Brigade) and Rodgers that has lurked beneath the skin since his return to Glasgow last summer.
While the success Rodgers has enjoyed – winning a double at the end of a tumultuous campaign last term allied to this season’s achievements – has won over many cynics, it may well be that for some, Rodgers is forever tainted by his previous exit. And more widely, that he is now a victim of his success.
Expectations at Celtic are always sky-high, of course, but the Celtic manager may feel both he and his team are due a little slack given what they have produced over recent months especially.
The high watermark for this season so far was the performance in the Champions League against RB Leipzig, when the football was enthralling, and the intensity of the pressing allied to the speed of the play when in possession was simply too much for the Germans to live with.
They were caught up in a Celtic Park whirlwind that night, and the fans were in rapture over what they were witnessing. That game, however, is now the one that all subsequent performances seem to be judged against.
After the Rangers defeat, Rodgers said that the facts don’t change after one loss, and as far as the stats go, they don’t really back up any fans who are currently grousing over the football they have been served up at Celtic Park since the win over Leipzig either.
Domestically, Celtic have racked up a 5-0 win, two 4-0 wins and two 3-0 wins against teams who have, on the main, come to Celtic Park to sit in and frustrate.
But within that run was also a 1-1 Champions League draw with Club Brugge, an evening that clearly irked Rodgers, and he has been clearly carrying his annoyance with the conduct of the crowd with him since.
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Off the back of the criticism both he and his team received after the defeat to Rangers, the groans at a backwards pass in the first half of the St Mirren game was clearly the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Having berated Daizen Maeda moments before he scored against Brugge for the same offence, Rodgers clearly feels that some fans have failed to heed the lesson, and that such criticism is unmerited. Particularly in the context of the season.
And while many fans are now accusing the manager of making a mountain out of a molehill, or for producing a negative story of his own volition during such a positive season, from his point of view it is the fans who are getting on the team’s back who are to blame.
The Celtic manager spoke earlier this season of how the club operates best when all factions – in the dugout, on the pitch, in the boardroom and in the stands - are united and pulling in the same direction.
But for Rodgers, the players come first. He will defend them at all costs, even from the fans. And make no mistake, they will love him for it.
Defending his players was perhaps also his key motivation for his comments about the Green Brigade singing the Kieran Tierney song, with Rodgers feeling that was a show of disrespect from the fans towards Greg Taylor.
The oft-maligned Taylor will have heard much worse over the course of his Celtic career. But with his contract due to expire in the summer and with Rodgers keen to keep him around, perhaps the Celtic manager felt there was an element of those negotiations being undermined by the lauding of his potential replacement from the stands.
Whatever the reason, what is indisputable is that Taylor has indeed been widely undervalued and at times unfairly singled out for criticism despite an overall contribution to the club of which he can rightly be proud.
The Kieran Tierney song will no doubt be blasted out with even greater gusto during Wednesday night’s game against Dundee United, whether that offends Rodgers’ sensibilities or not, and even if it puts Taylor’s nose out of joint more than the whack in the face he took in the win over St Mirren.
If through his pointed words though Rodgers can earn his players just a little more grace and patience from the wider crowd, then he will consider it all worthwhile.
