The Ferrari Fantasy: Rodgers Insults Celtic While Steering Them Off a Cliff
Rodgers' excuses pile up faster than Celtic’s defeats and he has now replaced responsibility with arrogance, delusion, and disastrous football.
There comes a point where the excuses run dry, the illusions shatter, and the hollow words of a manager who once proclaimed himself a disciple of elite football begin to sound like the mumblings of a man lost in his own reflection. Celtic reached that point long before Sunday. A 2–0 defeat to Dundee, a side who ran harder, fought harder, and looked hungrier, has stripped away the last remaining shreds of credibility and managerial dignity Brendan Rodgers had left.
His post-match comments were nothing short of pathetic. “There’s no way you’ll go into a race with keys to a Honda Civic and say ‘I want you to drive it like a Ferrari’,” he said - an attempt at wit that reeked instead of arrogance, of deflection, of the same patronising tone we’ve heard all season.
The message was clear: don’t blame me, blame the players.
It’s a tired refrain now. But it’s also an insult - not only to the players wearing the jersey, but to every supporter who turns up or tunes in expecting effort, passion, and purpose from a team that remains, pound for pound, vastly superior to every other in the country including Rangers.
What Rodgers is doing isn’t management. It’s sabotage dressed up as self-pity and an unchecked ego.
A Season of Shame
Let’s not dance around it - not one single performance this season has deserved pass marks. Not one. This isn’t a blip. It’s systemic. The players look like ghosts of themselves: disinterested, lethargic, unmotivated. There’s no tempo, no pressing, no intensity - nothing that resembles the swagger and ruthlessness that defines Celtic at their best.
You could blame the board for selling Kyogo and Kuhn. You could blame them for penny-pinching on key positions or handing Rodgers another batch of “project players” instead of first-team quality. But all of that fades into the background when a manager takes a squad of proven winners and makes them look like journeymen ending their careers in the pub leagues.
These players have stopped believing - and who could blame them? How can you play for a man who goes in front of the cameras and essentially says you’re not good enough to execute his grand vision of footballing nirvana?
A real leader inspires, adapts, and unites. Rodgers, instead, has divided, demoralised, and destroyed confidence in the changing rooms, on the pitch, and in the stands.
Failure After Failure
Let’s talk about the results. Celtic’s Champions League campaign ended in humiliation, knocked out by Kairat Almaty - a club with a fraction of our budget, infrastructure, and expectation. That alone was criminal. But worse is Rodgers’ domestic record in 2025.
He has failed to beat a Rangers side that are, by any measure, dreadful. No identity, three different managers - and yet Rodgers contrived to draw and lose to them while breaking every record for mind-numbingly slow football in the process. The most recent derby was one of the worst in living memory, not because of the scoreline, but because Celtic looked like a team playing out the last few minutes of a testimonial. To make matters worse, he couldn’t even beat an Ibrox side managed by a caretaker - a failed Kelty Hearts manager standing in on interim duty - and yet Rodgers still found a way to make him look like some football managerial messiah.
Let’s not sugarcoat it: the Scottish Cup Final against Aberdeen was a disgrace. A tactical collapse, a mental no-show, a humiliation on every front. The measure of a manager is what his team does on the big stage. Under Rodgers, Celtic have wilted every time the pressure’s been on in the big games last season and this season.
Working His Ticket
The whispers about Rodgers “working his ticket” - angling for a dignified exit before his contract expires this summer - are no longer whispers. They are statements of fact, validated by his attitude, his selections, and now his words.
When a club insider spoke to the press to claim Rodgers was counting down his final months, many of us were outraged. We saw it as betrayal - another leak from within the boardroom designed to pile pressure on the manager. But now, his every action confirms it.
His ego, his self-perceived elite status, and his refusal to adapt have reached toxic levels. Rodgers believes he’s above Celtic - above the league, above the players, above the fans. But his current record proves otherwise.
If he was half the coach he believes himself to be, Celtic wouldn’t be languishing behind a Hearts team in the league, we wouldn’t be easily beaten by Dundee, and certainly wouldn’t be stumbling out of Europe’s elite club competition to a team from Kazakhstan.
A Style That’s Sucked the Life Out of Celtic
Tactics define managers. With Rodgers, it’s possession for possession’s sake - endless sideways passes, sterile domination, and zero end product. The “tippy-tappy” philosophy that was once mistaken for sophistication has become a parody under his management.
Where Ange Postecoglou built a team on high energy, aggression, and fearless forward play, Rodgers has installed a system that looks allergic to risk. Every game feels like a slow funeral procession, each pass another shovel of dirt.
He picks players who fit his aesthetic rather than those who deliver results. Empty jerseys get minutes because they do what he says in training. Players with flair, pace, or unpredictability are frozen out.
And when January comes, does anyone really believe things will get better? The board won’t back him with his own players. They’ll sign their own, and Rodgers - in a sulk - will leave them rotting on the bench or in the stands just as he’s done all season with the other ‘club’ signings.
This isn’t a partnership between board and manager; it’s a civil war, and the team is suffering for it.
The Board’s Role in the Chaos
Make no mistake - the Celtic board are far from blameless. Their recruitment failures, lack of ambition, and focus on balance sheets over football excellence have set the tone for mediocrity. Selling key players and replacing them with cheaper options is unforgivable for a club with Celtic’s finances and fanbase.
But the manager’s job is to make the most of what he has, and Rodgers has failed spectacularly. A good coach can make average players look good. Rodgers has done the opposite - taken good players and made them look ordinary.
For all the board’s faults, they weren’t the ones who sent out that lethargic, rudderless eleven at Dens Park. They weren’t the ones who made Kyogo look isolated or Hatate look like he’d never seen a football before. They weren’t the ones who watched Maeda run himself half into the ground while the rest jogged about. That’s on the manager.
Delusion and Arrogance
Rodgers has always been a man in love with his own mythology. He sees himself as the visionary, the philosopher, the footballing purist. But what Celtic need right now is not a philosopher - it’s a motivator, a leader, someone who understands that this club isn’t a platform for personal ego but a living, breathing institution that demands heart, passion, and energy.
Instead, he lectures. He quotes analogies about Ferraris and Civics. He positions himself as the misunderstood genius weighed down by mediocrity.
It’s delusional - and it’s poison.
Every time Rodgers opens his mouth, morale drops another notch. Every passive-aggressive press conference, every hint of condescension, every refusal to take ownership eats away at the dressing room. The players know it. The fans know it. Even the board probably know it.
And that’s why Rodgers must go - not in January, not at the end of the season, but now.
The Endgame
Keeping Rodgers any longer risks turning this season into a full-blown disaster. We’re already out of the Champions League and looking out of our depth in the Europa League. We’ve already dropped points galore against domestic sides we should be sweeping aside. The football is dire, the atmosphere toxic, and the support completely apathetic.
Stick with Rodgers, and the league will slip away next. And when it does, it won’t be because the players were “Honda Civics.” It’ll be because the man behind the wheel was too arrogant to admit he can’t drive anymore.
Rodgers has lost the dressing room, the stands, and the argument. His narrative of victimhood has collapsed. The only thing left for him to do — for his own dignity and for the club’s stability — is to walk away.
Celtic Football Club deserves a manager who believes in its players, not one who insults them. A leader who adapts, not one who sulks. A tactician who inspires, not one who suffocates.
Until he’s gone, the malaise will linger, the performances will worsen, and the legacy he once had - that first spell where he brought invincible glory to Parkhead - will be buried under the wreckage of his own ego.
Brendan Rodgers promised Celtic fans glory, a Ferrari. Instead, he’s given us a car with a flat tyre, an empty tank, and a crash waiting to happen.
