Brendan Rodgers talks honestly about legacies and his relationship with the Celtic support.

 

Brendan Rodgers has opened up on his return to Celtic and his relationship with the Hoops support.

It’s fair to say the Celtic manager is trying to rebuild his reputation a little with his faithful followers after he departed the club in controversial circumstances in 2019.

While many will have moved on from those events, it’s still fair to say that it’s been a talking point at times during the early portion of this season.

To be fair to Rodgers, he hasn’t ever shied away from that. On Friday, amid chat about Liel Abada’s relationship with the Hoops support, he went a little more depth on his own status.

“Obviously, a group of supporters didn’t want me here, but that was never going to stop me coming back,” he told The Herald.

“My love of the club… I came back here for Celtic, and I wanted to do well for Celtic and create a legacy that is greater than what it was in my first time here. So sometimes you have to override that.

“You never want any relationship to be toxic. It doesn’t work. You want to minimise the enemies you have in your life whether it is football or life, in general. But taking the opportunity to build those relationships is how I would always do it, by trying to do the right things.

“I knew what I was coming to. Hopefully, as I said, I always think as a coach or a manager, you will always have your critics, no matter how well you have done. When I was here the first time, I’m pretty sure in the first year when we won the Invincible Treble, I would have had critics that year.

“It’s the beauty of experience. It doesn’t really matter. You focus on what does matter and that’s I know the vast majority of Celtic supporters, we can work together. The ones that we can’t, we’ll try and change their minds.”

For me, there is one sentence in there that sums up why Rodgers has returned. He wants to create a legacy that is greater than his first stint. Basically, he wants to be remembered more fondly than he was prior to returning.

That’s a big ask, given the success he enjoyed during the original spell. Perhaps bringing about more domestic trophies and leaving in a more palatable way will be enough. There’s a fair chance he’ll feel European football fits into the equation too.

For all of the chat about Rodgers being or not being a major Celtic supporter, it is clear that the noise after his 2019 departure will have hurt. He may well be here with the sole intention of making sure he’s remembered much more fondly.

I’m fine with that, because for it to be the case, he’ll have to have brought some great memories. I can’t wait to see how it will all shake out.