Celtic dropped some shocking, yet also unsurprising, news on Monday night when they confirmed that Brendan Rodgers had tendered his resignation.
The Northern Irish head coach has stepped down as manager of the Scottish Premiership champions, shortly after his side lost 3-1 to Hearts on Sunday.
The timing of the decision came as a shock, as there had not been any prior indication that he was likely to step down from his position, at least in the public domain.
However, it was also not a surprise because talkSPORT’s Alex Crook recently explained that the manager was likely to leave next summer, saying: “I have just been hearing a lot of whispers that maybe Brendan Rodgers could decide at the end of the season not to renew his deal, and that the time is right to leave Celtic for a second time.”
Instead of waiting until his contract expired next summer, though, the former Leicester City and Liverpool boss decided to walk away from it at the start of this week.
Only Rodgers will be able to give his full reasoning behind the decision, if he decides to speak about it publicly, but it could be the right decision for the club.
Why Brendan Rodgers leaving may be the right decision
The former Hoops manager won four Premiership titles, three SFA Cups, and four League Cups across two spells with the Scottish giants, per Transfermarkt, which shows that he had a lot of success at Parkhead.
There can be no denying that Rodgers will go down as a great Celtic manager, given his achievements, but all things come to an end, and the team’s form this season suggested that it was the end of an era in Glasgow.
The Hoops lost their last two Premiership matches under Rodgers and currently find themselves eight points adrift of Hearts in the league table, which is not a position that the ex-Bhoys manager was used to being in.
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Brendan Rodgers’ Premiership career
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Season
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Matches
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Points per game
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25/26
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9
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1.89
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24/25
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38
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2.39
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23/24
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38
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2.45
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18/19
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27
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2.33
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17/18
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38
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2.16
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16/17
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38
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2.79
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Stats via Transfermarkt
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As you can see in the table above, Rodgers ends his second Celtic spell with only one Premiership season averaging below 2.16 points per game, which is the current campaign.
Of course, the head coach may have turned things around and gotten over that two points per game mark later in the season, but the side’s current form shows that they were on a downward trajectory under the Northern Irishman, which is why his exit from Parkhead may be a good call for all parties.
Martin O’Neill is back in interim charge, for now, but the attention will turn to who the club are going to appoint as their next manager, and a former player has told them who to go for.
Celtic plot approach for new manager
It looks as though O’Neill will be in charge for the club’s clash with Falkirk at Parkhead on Wednesday night, but they will need a longer-term solution in the dugout.
Former Celtic centre-forward and current Sky Sports pundit Chris Sutton has urged the Premiership champions to go and bring Ange Postecoglou back to Glasgow.
The Australian boss, who left Celtic in the summer of 2023, was recently sacked by Premier League side Nottingham Forest and that means that he is available and potentially ready to step into a new job.
In fact, Football Insider reports that the Hoops may make contact with the former Tottenham Hotspur head coach to discuss a sensational return to Parkhead.
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However, Football Insider does not reveal whether or not the former Celtic manager wants to make such a quick return to the game, or if he wants to return to Glasgow for a second spell at the club.
They do appear to be planning to make an approach to speak with the Europa League winner, though, which shows that they are interested in appointing him as Rodgers’ replacement.
Why Celtic should push for Ange Postecoglou to return
The Hoops board should be pushing to bring Ange Postecoglou back to Parkhead in the coming days because he could return to Scotland as an upgrade on Rodgers.
In his two seasons in charge in Glasgow, the Australian boss, whose football was hailed as “breathtaking” by Gary Neville, racked up a whopping 192 points in 76 Premiership matches, per Transfermarkt, which works out at 2.52 points per game.
Whereas, Rodgers won 453 points in 188 games in charge of the club across two spells at Parkhead, per Transfermarkt, which is an average of around 2.41 points per game.
These statistics suggest that the former Spurs boss got even more out of the team domestically, despite both managers winning titles in all of their full seasons in charge, as his sides won more points per game on average.
Hamish Carton, in the clip above, explains how impressive Postecoglou’s achievements at Celtic were off the back of the situation that he inherited when he first arrived, as Rangers had run away with the league title in the previous season.
This means that his dominance at Celtic was even more impressive than Rodgers’ was, because the 4-3-3 boss had to turn a bad situation around, whilst Rodgers came into a club that had just won the domestic treble in the summer of 2023, and he was able to build from that.
Postecoglou’s domestic treble in the 2022/23 campaign was not repeated by the Northern Irish boss in the 2023/24 or the 2024/25 seasons, which also shows that he had more success, in terms of trophies, than the recently departed manager.
Therefore, pushing to bring Postecoglou, who Carton also described as a “better manager” than Rodgers, back to Celtic could result in the club having an upgrade in the dugout for the rest of this season, and beyond, which is why they should take Sutton’s advice and make a serious move for his services.