Q: The Europa League draw today as well. What did you make of the opponents that you’ve got?
Brendan Rodgers: “I’m excited by it when we come in from training, we’ve seen the games and Roma and the different teams that we’ll play. It’s a very another very prestigious competition. Of course, we’re all bitterly disappointed that we’re not in the Champions League. But my point is, and I said to the players this morning, that we’ve had a couple of days to grieve over that, whatever’s happened, but it’s done. And our message now is that we as a team and as a club, we have to be all together.
“And we need to find the solutions as to over the course of the summer, why we weren’t able to strengthen before the games when clearly we wanted to. We need that in-depth look at that. Because we can’t be as a football club in this cycle where we’ve grown for a couple of years. We get to Bayern Munich. We show great signs, and then we stand still. We can’t do that. So we have to understand the why in that. But then the next point is it’s done. We’re not in the Champions League. We’re playing in the Europa League. We have some brilliant games. We get domestic titles to defend. And altogether we can have a really, really good season.”
Q: Celtic trying to do business so late in the window. Why do you think that culture is so hard to change?
Brendan Rodgers: “There are so many reasons as to why transfers don’t get done and don’t get done in time. I just know that as a football manager and coach, you bring in a player in the 1st of July as well as you can. You’ve maybe scouted him and looked at him and done a lot of the work. You bring him in 1st of July. He’s got time to adapt, not just to football life, but his family moving out of hotels, getting into apartments, houses, whatever else. And then when you get to your games, like your competitive games, the games that matter. They’re settled then and ready.
“The example of the young guy at Brugge there during the week, you know, 6 million pound winger. He’s signed. He comes in and does his work and makes a difference. So, for us as a football club, it’s not about investment either, because this club will invest. The club’s super well run. The investment is there. We need to look at the timing of the investment. And does that go back to recruitment? Does it go back to identification?
“All these different facets, but what I do know is we have to be better at it. So, it’s not about investment. The club will invest. We’ll see over the next few days. I’m pretty sure we’ll invest. But we want to get the timing of investment important, just to give us every single chance to be the best version of Celtic that we can be.”
Q: How hopeful are you that this time next year that is something that can be changed?
Brendan Rodgers: “Well, that’s we have to discuss. We have to look at that and and I’d be very hopeful. We’ve got a major owner in Dermot Desmond who’s a super-intelligent guy. We’ve got board of directors who bleed for the club. They want the club to do well. So, everyone here’s connected. It’s not, you know, why I see and I hear all these stories of disconnection. It can’t be further from the truth.
“Every single guy from me, the board, Dermot, we love Celtic, but we want Celtic to be the very, very best. There’s a business model that you see works so well. I want to try and ensure the football model works equally as well. So, it’s fluent and agile and we keep ahead of the game. So, when we lose players, we’re not in this cycle of waiting, waiting, waiting, standing still and missing out on competitions that we want to be in. So, that’s the that’s the idea hopefully, over the coming months.”
