Brendan Rodgers admits 'suppressing' Celtic hurt as he opens up on redemption bid and Ange Postecoglou

The easy line is that Champions League nights against heavyweights such as Atletico Madrid are the reason Brendan Rodgers dared accept the highest-possible risk Celtic comeback.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers takes a training session on Tuesday ahead of the Champions League clash with Atletico Madrid. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

It fails to recognise the depth of the redemption motive for the Irishman’s June return. A desire to be recognised by future generations of the club’s faithful as a figure with feelings for Celtic who made good as manager. Feelings that hold more powerful sway than any solitary spectacle. Even the senses-assaulting generated by Diego Simeone’s team pitching up at Parkhead on Wednesday evening. Alright, somehow ending the club’s 10 year, 11 home encounters, wait for a victory at this elite level would nudge Rodgers towards statue status. A matter of months after the only effigies a considerable section of the Celtic support would have crafted were likenesses in which to stick pins. But there is a sense Sunday at Tynecastle represented a more significant staging post on the journey he sought to embark on when he agreed to a second stint in charge. An opportunity presented as a consequence of Tottenham Hotspur luring away Ange Postecoglou.

An English Premier League post of promise proving irresistible to the Australian did not result in him being presented as treacherous by the fanbase with which he cuts ties in the fashion that befell Rodgers in 2019. His departure for Leicester City three months before he could complete a triple treble provoking a depth of hatred from a spurned support it seemed certain would forever poison their associations. Now, though, a lancing appears underway as his 2023 side begin to exhibit the footballing finesse that made them an unstoppable domestic force in his two-and-three-quarter years from the summer of 2016.

In this context, the 4-1 mauling dished out to Hearts at the weekend felt as significant for a song as much as his team’s swish - the serenading of him by the 569 Celtic fans at full-time the first time he has earned such appreciation in his second tour of duty. Not lost on Rodgers was the “irony” represented by this reaction when Tynecastle also happened to be the scene of Celtic’s first game subsequent to his Leicester flit in February 2019. And an enduring memory of it proved the unfurling of a banner by the Green Brigade – locked out by the club the other day over recent misdemeanours – that declared of Rodgers: ‘you traded immortality for mediocrity; never a Celt, always a fraud’.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers addresses the media ahead of his side's Champions League match against Atletico Madrid. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

“But listen, it’s all about winning games,” he said, maintaining the banner from 2019 wasn’t on his mind as he savoured Sunday’s performance with the Celtic section. “However long I’m here, and whatever we win, everyone may not be onside. That’s okay. As long as the team gets the support then that’s really most important. Of course, when you have that connection, like I had the first time when I was here, then it brings everything together. And it’s an amazing feeling. I understand why there was a bit of resentment towards me coming back, but it was never going to stop me. I am professional enough in my work to focus on the team. And if I can produce a team that excites the fans, and we can win things in my time here, then I hope that can be acceptable. For some, I was erased out of the history of the club because of how I left. So probably what I did before really hasn’t counted for anything. For me to come back here was to start again and have that hunger and ambition to win. And win in a style that the club and the supporters have been used to.”

Nothing may have been achieved on the pitch in Rodgers’ current Celtic tenure. But, just as he achieved the seemingly impossible by presiding over the invincible treble of 2016-17 and seven straight trophies in total, so it is with the standing he is regaining among the Celtic support. Any serious faltering over the opening months of his second spell as Postecoglou has been ripping it up down south would have resulted in his suffering an almighty pasting as the Australian would have been pined for.

“I think you can respect the work Ange has done here in the two years. I was here nearly three and then I left,” he said. “Ange has gone to Tottenham and is doing a fantastic job at a club perfect for how he wants to play and the players there. But it doesn’t give me any more or less satisfaction. I don’t conflate the two. The overall objective here is to be successful. I knew the challenges coming here, the perception. I said on the first day I came back here because I knew people were hurt. And, if I’m being frank, I was probably suppressing my own hurt.

“The idea was to come back and build that relationship again. I knew it wouldn’t be straight away because if you’re really hurt then that can take time. But I hope, in time, I can bring the success that lets people see that I’m back here for the success of Celtic. I hope that can give them joy and our relationship comes together again.”

Any hurt felt was not wrapped up in the abuse meted out to him for simply taking a career path Postecoglou didn’t hesitate to follow, though. Just as there is no sense of him now righting a wrong from four-and-a-half years ago. “I had such a strong bond here and was in such a great place,” Rodgers said. “Obviously, my professional challenge took me away, into the most competitive league in the world. But, from a personal perspective, the bond breaking - the depth of hurt that it gave - was probably overridden for a while just purely because I was professional and doing another job. But, over time, you realised actually how much it had meant to be here both from a professional perspective and a personal perspective because I loved the life here in Glasgow and the people. So, that was the reason. The hurt that comes with making a decision, you obviously live with that. But you never regret that.”