Brendan Rodgers is a manager known for improving players and that coaching trait will be crucially important to Celtic over the next couple of years.
Rodgers has inherited a young, vibrant squad upon his return to the Bhoys and already signed a number of players who have not yet reached their full potential.
It’s worth remembering that the Celtic boss showed he can do this with various players during his first stint at the club – none more so than winger James Forrest.
The attacker is being celebrated this week with the visit of Athletic Club for his testimonial on Tuesday night and ahead of that, current Celtic coach Darren O’Dea has explained just how Rodgers managed to take Forrest’s game to a new level.
O’Dea said [Sunday Post, 30/07 print edition]: “I would say there was a massive jump in his development when Brendan Rodgers came in for the first time in 2016. Brendan taught him how to arrive in areas at the right time and James became as good as anyone at arriving for a cut-back.
“You had that left side with Kieran Tierney and Scott Sinclair and James Forrest coming in off the other side, the number of times teams got done with a cut-back was remarkable. That was coached. It was Brendan bringing his knowledge to James. He had to be willing to learn and clearly, he was.
“I think Scotland reaped the benefit too because he started impacting things at a really high level. He is still going strong. He maybe did not play as often as he would like (last season), but he played an important role in the dressing room.”
Forrest, fit and involved during pre-season, will be eager to play an important role under Rodgers again. He may not be quite as firm a fixture of the manager’s team as years gone by, but he will still be involved plenty as part of the wider squad.
Celtic play a lot of games between now and the winter break, it’s almost one every few days. Rotation is necessary and Forrest will be in contention for minutes along the way.
We know that Rodgers can inspire him to excellent form and he could benefit as much as anyone from his return, as well as help younger talents progress and learn to be as much of a winner as he has been.
In other news, Athletic Club’s brilliant Celtic tribute ahead of James Forrest testimonial.
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