Celtic Diary Sunday May 29: Putting Things In Place

Brendan Rodgers continued his rebuild-or redesign -of Celtic with the acquisition of a new Performance Director in Glen Driscoll.

CELTIC Football Club today announced the appointment of Glen Driscoll as its new Head of Performance.  Glen is hugely experienced and highly rated in his area of expertise and has worked already with new Celtic manager, Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool and Swansea.

Glen has also spent nine years at Chelsea where he worked with managers such as Jose Mourinho, Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti across the areas of performance, fitness and conditioning, physiotherapy and injury prevention.    

Brendan Rodgers said: “Bringing Glen to Celtic is great news for our players who will benefit from the huge breadth of knowledge he has across all areas of performance.

“The experience he will bring to the club will be invaluable to our players and I know he will work very well with the excellent medical and performance staff already at the club.

“Performance, fitness, strength and conditioning, rehabilitation and injury prevention are all crucial elements in the modern game and we will be using Glen’s wide range of skills to ensure we achieve the highest standards across these areas.

“Glen’s talent in this area has been a massive support to me at both Liverpool and Swansea and I know he will deliver great work and great benefits to our players at Celtic.”

Glen added: “I am absolutely delighted to join Celtic, such an iconic name in world football and I am really looking forward to teaming up again with both Brendan and Chris.

“We have some highly talented elite players at the club and my role will be to ensure we give them all we can to achieve any extra edge possible.

“The areas I work in play a huge role ultimately in achieving maximum performance levels, in preventing injury and ensuring a high level of player availability.

“We are looking forward to meeting the squad in the next few weeks. Myself and the other performance staff at Celtic will work together and do all we can to help our players achieve their own objectives as individual athletes and help the team as a whole deliver success to our fans.” 

He helps to prevent players getting injured ? Why didn’t we think of that before ?

What it does show is , combined with the appointment of Chris Davies as assistant manager , is that Rodgers is in control, and getting the people that he wants in as quickly as possible, and he is not going to let the tail wag the dog.

So, its all good.

And theres still Ibrahimovic and Gerrard to come.

Well, maybe Gerrard. Although Zlatan has said he knows where he’ll be playing next season, he hasn’t told anyone else yet.

Steven was outstanding for me as a captain, so maybe one day,” Rodgers told The Scottish Sun regarding a move for Gerrard. “You want to work with the best people — and he’s certainly one of the best.”  

Where, if Gerrard were to arrive, would that leave Scott “Starer ” Brown ?

Lets ask Brendan;

“Scott is a real warrior and he will stay captain here, 150 per cent.

“Last season, towards the end, he was maybe hit a little by injury. But he’s only 30 and still has his best years ahead.

“When I went into Liverpool as manager, Steven was 32. There was a lot of talk that maybe his best days were gone.

“But Steven went on for the next two years and was brilliant for me at Anfield. He was a great leader and he nearly went on to lift the Premier League title.”

He does seem rather fond of Gerrard, doesn’t he ?

Any news on who’s going or who is staying ?

Emilio-what about you ?

 “I have a contract and nobody has told me anything else.”  

Fair enough. I think we’d all rather the Honduran stayed. his experience is invaluable, and Keiran Tierney isn’t strong enough for a full season yet.

It’s sign up or sign off time though, for Stefan Johansen. He’s going into the last twelve months of his contract, and the club cannot aford to let him run it down. A couple of German clubs have registered an interest, and it doesn’t look like he’ll hang around for another season of abuse.

 Tom Rogic is now wanted by the likes of Fiorentina and Valencia , as well as Arsenal, but he keeps himself to himself and isn’t giving any hints as to what his plans are.

Anthony stokes is attracting interest from the south, with Birmingham allegedly interested.

The squad will be trimmed, but the way Rodgers has started the job leads one to think he’ll decide who goes and who stays, and he won’t do that until he’s had a look at everyone.

On to Resolution 12-don’t panic, its all in hand and there will be movement next week. Its been about making sure everything is spot on.

Those who opposed or challenged the evidence-or lack of it-in the Tax justice Netowrk report into the governance of the scottish game got their answer this week;

Second Offshore Game article

What we would call a “must read “

And there’s still no sign of Mark Warburton yet, and as the days go by the chances of him turning up triumphantly with Niko Kranjcar are surely diminshing. Is the writing on the wall for Warbs ? Or are we “Reading ” too much into things ?

The Etims extravaganza and beer festival will be on the 23rd of july, at Malones in the city. The owner has kindly declared an amnesty and has allowed us to book some tables. Gary OG, and Irish folk combo will be playing that night, and those of us who haven’t passed out by then will be able to watch them.

 Anyine know of any cheap hotels nearby >

Not the Belgrave, I’d have to smarten myself up a bit for that one.

Marcs Da swept the caption competition opposition aside with his “The Craig Whyte Sirloin, otherwose known as the £1 stake ” comment.

Today, explain this…