You wonder what was going through the minds of Brendan Rodgers and Steven Gerrard when the Champions League groups were being compiled in Istanbul on Thursday. Gerrard and Rodgers left Ibrox and Celtic Park in mid-season, both giving the impression they couldn’t get out of the country quickly enough.
Now, at their new clubs, they’re further from the Champions League than Alfredo Morelos is from being named Player of the Year. Former Celtic gaffer Rodgers, the last man to take one of the Old Firm into that stage of the competition in 2017, spent Tuesday night trying to get Leicester City past the might of Stockport County in the EFL Cup.
It required a penalty shoot-out to get them into the next round for a glamour tie against Newport County. It could have been Celtic versus Real Madrid, Brendan. Gerrard’s Aston Villa have also lost their way of late, sitting in the bottom half of the Premier League table. Rumblings about the manager’s job security have become audible in the background. It could have been Anfield and the return of the Prodigal Son, Stevie, if you’d stayed on at Rangers.
How much credit do Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Ange Postecoglou deserve for the work they’ve done in restoring the reputation of clubs who are lucky enough to have them? Rodgers teased the Celtic fans that he was there to bring them 10-in-a-row – but he was clearly waiting for any chance to get out of Scotland.
Gerrard stopped 10-in-a-row then fled the country in the belief he’d done all he had to do. But only after losing to Malmo and costing Rangers a place in the Champions League. That left van Bronckhorst to deal with the domestic collapse that followed while Postecoglou showed the resilience to overcome a chaotic start to his time in charge and establish Celtic as champions with a flourish.
You get the impression, rightly or wrongly, their professional ambitions are satisfied within the confines of the places where they work. Unlike the people they replaced. Van Bronckhorst is tactically astute on the European stage, as a Europa League Final place and access to the Champions League would verify.
And he was brave enough to dump Morelos for idiotic indiscipline on the eve of the tie against PSV that was, in effect, a £40million shootout. The least the Colombian could have done after his red card against Hibs was apologise for his stupidity. Was a simple “Perdon” in the Spanish tongue that is his first language too much to ask? Instead he insulted his manager’s intelligence with some bizarre social media message about warriors and battles, which sounded like an advert for Game of Thrones.
Now the question is, what’s the going rate for an overweight, disruptive, destructive and disinterested striker? Rangers, and some of their supporters, indulged Morelos and his erratic ways for years. Van Bronckhorst had the courage of his convictions and the skills of a good man-manager by publicly exposing the player’s failings as a professional.
The fans who, prior to kick-off in the Netherlands on Thursday night, wanted to pillory the manager for taking a principled stance might now care to reflect on who was right and who was wrong. Neither Gio nor Ange compromise on anything when it comes to their way of working.
Ange’s philosophy on how Celtic should play will now come under severe scrutiny against the reigning European champions Real. The manager’s belief is that if the choice is survival or impact he’ll choose to go for the latter and stand or fall by being faithful to that philosophy. Both bosses now need to juggle the exotic nature of their Champions League groups and the more earthly demands of domestic bragging rights.
Celtic ’s immediate priority is to go into next Saturday’s derby still having a points advantage over Rangers after today’s game at Tannadice. If Dundee United tried to shoot themselves in the foot at the moment they’d miss. Four defeats in a row, with 15 goals conceded and just one scored.
Postecoglou and his players have to exploit that frailty. Tannadice was the place where 10-in-a-row was officially lost on the back of a goalless draw. It was also the ground where Celtic won the title after a 1-1 draw last season. A share of the points is no use today in the world of a draw’s a disaster and defeat’s a catastrophe. Then it’s the big picture.
The Old Firm game will want for nothing in terms of hostility, tribalism and the atmosphere of the madhouse. But the men in the dugouts will be ambassadors for professional respect.
Our game is fortunate to have their influence over the clubs they represent.
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