Brendan Rodgers has spent the last four years touring Old Trafford, Anfield and the Etihad – but he’s never forgotten the challenge that always awaits at Pittodrie.
The Celtic manager’s second spell in charge faces its first significant test on Sunday as he takes his Premiership champions north to face Aberdeen. Having opened with a 4-2 win at home to Ross County last weekend, the Parkhead side have already established a three point advantage over Rangers after their slip-up at Kilmarnock.
The Dons have been widely tipped to finish best of the rest outside of Glasgow’s big two this season, and they finished last season strongly following the appointment of ex-Celtic midfielder Barry Robson. Rodgers admits he has been impressed by Robson’s work so far in his first senior managerial appointment, and is preparing his players for a thorough examination of their hunger and mentality this weekend.
“I’ve watched it from a distance, he’s come in and done very well, probably simplified everything for them and got them to a great finish,” said Rodgers. “I’ve spoken to Barry a few times through the off-season. It’ll be a challenging game. They play 3-5-2 , get the ball into the attacking line and look to play from there.
“Going to Pittodrie is always a tough game for Celtic. Even when we’ve played well and won there, you’ve got to be right on it to get the result.
“Even in the games we’ve played well there we’ve had to be fully concentrated. Obviously, if you win there it’s a great reward for the supporters who have made a long journey up.”
At just 50, Rodgers is hardly a dugout old timer, but he does have a wealth of experience to share with up-and-coming coaches. He insists he will always make a point of engaging with his counterparts, as he has done already with Robson.
Managers simultaneously lead a privileged and charmed existence, living a constant cycle of exhilarating highs, crushing lows, and never enough sleep. Having been around the block several times at a string of top clubs, Rodgers insists his door is forever open.
“It is important,” he explained. “Unless you’ve been in the shoes of a manager, you can never really understand what it’s like. Especially as you’re coming through.
“The more experience you gain, the more you try and help a different generation, or sometimes it’s managers who have come into it later, with some of the pitfalls.
“Even if you’re a number two and are within touching distance, it’s totally different to being the manager – the responsibility, the lack of sleep, it’s a different sport. I always like to have time for managers where I can, whether it’s on the phone or coming into Lennoxtown, or especially speaking after games.
“It’s a great life, we’re very privileged to live and work in it, but there are challenges and it’s nice to be able to share.”
The importance of a strong start in the title race is obvious, and Celtic’s opening run of fixtures includes Sunday’s journey north and a trip across Glasgow to Ibrox. A younger Rodgers would have looked at those games in chunks and pored over what a realistic return would be for his team. But no longer. The Northern Irishman acknowledges it’s one of football’s oldest cliches, but it doesn’t stop the ‘one game at a time’ mantra being a valuable one.
“Very boringly I only look at the next game,” Rodgers insisted. “When I was a younger manager I looked at chunks of five games and anticipated what we could get out of them. But through experience you learn that you can’t forecast football. I don’t know what Aberdeen will bring, or St Johnstone, Kilmarnock or Rangers. I can only try to know what we can bring and that’s to get the team ready for the next game. That’s as far as I look.
“Of course you think about where you could be at and you plan forward but the focus is purely on the next game and give your all on that.
“It’s difficult to forecast. In the past if you’d said to me after Gibraltar that we would win 44 games out of 48, draw four and win everything then I could never have forecast that. But all you can do is control your own self. I can see the development of this team and we’ll bring the game to our opponents and that all really you can prepare for.”
What seems certain is Rodgers’ players will spend more minutes on the pitch than last season. The SFA have confirmed that referees will implement the same approach to stoppage time as was seen at last year’s Qatar World Cup. Tournament matches regularly ran in excess of 100 minutes as officials took a hardline approach to perceived timewasting. Rodgers, though, has reservations.
“Naturally if you’re one of the so-called bigger clubs it’s a worry because of the number of games,” he explained. “You think about someone like Callum McGregor who’s playing 60 to 70 games per season and then adding eight to 10 minutes onto the end of every game. So, it’s that accumulation over the course of a season. When you’re trying to take some minutes off these players you’re actually going to be putting more minutes into them. It’s crazy, the top-level players what they’re having to play when there should be games taken away from them.
“So, I’m not overly in favour of it. If there’s a few extra minutes to be played when there’s been a bad injury then fine. But I don’t think the clock should be stopped for celebrating goals, for example. That’s a natural part of the game. And we’ve got multi-ball up here now too so the ball should be in play longer.
“I’ve not gone into it too much with our players. But at this moment in time we just need to get on with it. We had the referees in last week and got a good presentation on everything but they didn’t talk too much about that aspect.”
