BRENDAN Rodgers, who was yesterday named on the shortlist for the PFA Scotland manager of the year award, has paid tribute to Scottish football for making him a better manager.
The most illustrious coaches in the world game might be congregating in the Barclays Premier League right now but Rodgers feels the challenge of coming up against different tactics and styles in the Ladbrokes Premiership, not to mention some contending with some variable playing surfaces, has improved him from the figure who was harshly sacked by Liverpool in October 2015.
The Celtic manager – who has led the Parkhead side to the cusp of an unbeaten domestic season and only the fourth treble in the club’s history – heads a shortlist which also includes Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes, Partick Thistle’s Alan Archibald and Jim Duffy of Morton for an award which will be presented in Glasgow on Sunday night.
“Coming to Scotland means I’m a better manager now than when I left Liverpool,” said Rodgers. “There are two reasons for that. The first is that my players have made me better and the second is the quality of the other coaches, who have all posed different problems for me.
“I’ve been impressed by a lot of the guys up here. They might not have the facilities and they don’t have the money the clubs down south do but they manage to find a way to make it work. All the tactics and the styles are all different and I’m a better manager for having dealt with that and I’ll be better still a year from now.
“What you have in Scotland is an unpredictability with surfaces – and I’ve already said you don’t get good games on artificial turf – and that can affect performances and results,” explained the 44-year-old Northern Irishman. “You also have more varied systems. And no matter how much or how little they’re being paid, the players up here always give their all and there is a physical aspect to that.
“We’ve all seen over the years that big teams can go to lesser teams and find it very tough and that’s what you get here every week,” he added. “I’ve been impressed by how my players have coped with that.”
The next challenge for Celtic is how to continue improving - no easy task when you haven’t lost a game all season. While the Northern Irishman agreed with the verdict of Moussa Dembele that they could target winning every single domestic game, he is determined to continue that his team keeps getting better.
“We will fight to be better next year,” he said. “We might not win every trophy – we might not win any – but we can still be better. That’s the aim.”
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