There is no more self-absorbed football fan in the world like an English football fan. The world begins and ends with their Premier League and nothing else quite matters.
The kind of smug satisfaction they get as their clubs rack up their transfer-o-meter every year – paying millions upon millions for average talent. A slave to the whims of their soulless owners who sack personnel for sport in a bid to keep suckling at the Premier League TV cash cow.
If you don’t play/manage in the Premier League you don’t matter. There are genuine English football fans who are still on the fence about Messi because he’s never done it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke.
That’s why it’s not surprising today when a story broke about Brendan Rodgers being on a shortlist of people to replace Wenger – all the blogs down south started analysing it the only way they know how – Would Arsenal really want him?
Let me flip the question and ask this – Would Brendan Rodgers really want Arsenal?
Having already managed in the EPL and come closer than Arsenal have in the last decade to winning the league – Rodgers knows how fickle the game is down south. The Celtic manager talks of six-week cycles, where a manager could be living the high life but quickly come crashing down to reality.
While the Irishman speaks fondly of his time at Liverpool – when he talks about Celtic and being the manager of a team he supported as a bhoy, you can see his eyes light up, and his voice sometimes crack.
Rodgers has an immense pride being the leader of the Celtic family. Not even two years into the job he has had speculation linking him with a whole host of jobs down south and beyond. When questioned on speculation, he draws a wry smile and tells everyone who happy he and his family are in Glasgow.
Arsenal might be on the lookout for a new manager in the summer but before they get ahead of themselves and try to ridicule the man who shows more passion on his own than their whole side showed in the League Cup final at the weekend.
For the record, Arsenal would be lucky to have him. I just don’t see Rodgers heading there for a payday and the aggravation that comes with having to satiate a placid support in a soulless stadium. Arsenal aren’t the team they were in the late 90s/00s – they seem happy to hang in their and hope for a fourth place spot year after year if they can keep their noisy neighbours at bay.
English fans might see it as why wouldn’t he leave Scottish football to come back to English football.
That’s not a reflection of the real choice Rodgers would have to make.
Why would he want to leave Celtic for Arsenal? That’s a very different proposition.
Some don’t understand the pull of Celtic and what it can do to you if you’re part of it. Just ask Kieran Tierney. It’s something money can’t buy.
