BRENDAN Rodgers today stressed the final decision on whether a Celtic player is fit enough to start a match lies with him not his sports science staff as he looked ahead to the meeting with Rangers at Ibrox on Thursday.
His opposite number Philippe Clement has been savaged by supporters and media pundits in recent days for basing his team selections on the advice of members of his backroom staff.
Clement fielded understrength starting line-ups against St Mirren at the SMiSA Stadium last week and Motherwell at Fir Park on Sunday - and his side lost and drew those games respectively to fall 14 points behind their city rivals in the William Hill Premiership table.
Rodgers, who is only missing James Forrest heading into the third Old Firm game of the 2024/25 campaign in Govan, admitted that he takes on board the advice he is given by all of his colleagues at Parkhead but makes the final call on who features in a match himself.
"It's like any sector of my club, whether it's coaching, medicine, sports science, our welfare team,” he said. "I'm always there to listen, but ultimately you make the judgement as a manager, that's what you get paid for.
“You get paid as a manager to listen to opinions, but ultimately the beauty of being a coach and a leader is that you decide.
“I've got a brilliant sports science team here that will give me all the information I ever need if I want it, and like in anything, I'm open to it, but I'm not driven by it. I'm driven by talking with players and getting a feel for them.
“Because we all have moments in our life that you may not want to do something, but you get somehow dragged to it and you go, 'Okay'. And you quite enjoy it. So for me it's more about feeling.
“I repeat, I've got a brilliant sports science team that knows how we work and we know we have to push players sometimes. It might not sit well and might not look nice on a number, but this game is an art and it's about feeling and emotion.
“It's about working with the players and sometimes pushing them over a hill when perhaps they don't want to go there. But that push gets them over and when they get to the other side, it's a great place.”
Rodgers added: "Your instinct, your experience, matter. Like I said, I listen to all my department in terms of the information that I need. So I'll be informed by it, but not driven by it. The game's about people.
“All the players here, they work ever so hard. I change the team around to keep the energy, keep that enthusiasm in the team and the team has responded brilliantly to that. The game has to be about the emotional and the feel and how the players are.”
