Brendan Rodgers has addressed the fallout of his comments where the Celtic manager criticised the supporters after the win against St Mirren at the weekend.
The Hoops boss was unhappy with the fan’s apparent ‘disrespect’ of Greg Taylor over the speculation surrounding Kieran Tierney as the supporters sang the Arsenal man’s name at Parkhead at the weekend.
Rodgers was also annoyed with fans’ reaction to the style of play with supporters showing their frustrations at how the team struggled to break through a dogged St Mirren defence in the Celtic Park win.
Speaking ahead of Celtic’s next fixture against Dundee United, Rodgers was asked what he made of the reaction to his comments and if he was surprised by the scale of the fallout.
Brendan Rodgers gets ‘honest’ and admits where his focus is after Celtic supporter comments
Rodgers told Celtic TV, “I have to be totally honest, I haven’t seen anything. We played the game, we recover, we train, and then our focus is primarily on the game.
“I think it’s obviously in your guy’s world. It’s not in my world. And you know, everything is open for debate now. Win, lose, draw, whatever you say, so it’s not something that I get attracted to really.
“My focus is really on the team in our next game.
Brendan Rodgers addresses Celtic supporters’ thoughts on signing Kieran Tierney’s name
Rodgers was then asked if he understood the Celtic fans’ reason for singing about Kieran Tierney and when he was told that it had nothing to do with Greg Taylor, the Hoops gaffer said, “I said before, and I repeat, everyone has an opinion. Everyone has an emotion, people can say what they think, and that’s okay.
“I think I have said a number of times in my time here, and it’s just reinforcing, really, that the unity is the strength of this football club.
“So as a manager, my priority since the day I walked in has always been the players and the supporters. Then that’s the connection which is always most important and if that consistency is there then of course you get great results. So I think we’ve seen that.
“And every now and then it’s to observe, it’s not to tell anyone what to think, say or do but certainly when we’re together, we’re a much stronger club.”
With Celtic holding a commanding lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership table all the furore over the last couple of days is nothing but a sideshow.
Rodgers and the team will be fully focused on getting a win against Dundee United to go 16 points clear ahead of Rangers who are due to play 24 hours later.
The pressure is all on the Ibrox club from now until the end of the season because many people don’t believe they can win the title but what they don’t want is to look back at the end of this season and see the gap between Rangers and Celtic look embarrassing.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
