Brendan Rodgers Title Winning Tactic
Brendan Rodgers. If you look up the name, you find achievements, fails and rumors about him not being a good football manager.
But all that stops with Celtic Glasgow.
What Brendan Rodgers achieved with the Scottish club should prove to most people that he is a good football manager, a good tactician.
And this is what we are here to talk about. Brendan Rodgers and his most recent Celtic tactic.
Brendan Rodgers is a Northern Irish professional football manager and former player who began his career as a defender at Ballymena United, where he stayed until he was signed by Reading at the age of 18.
Disaster struck, though, a genetic knee condition forced him to retire at the age of 20.
He remained at Reading as a coach and then academy director, and continued to play non-league football at Newport, Witney Town and Newbury Town for several years.
In 2010, he took over the managerial position at Swansea City, leading the club to promotion to the Premier League, the first Welsh team to do so, before guiding them to finish 11th the following season.
On June 1st, 2012, Brendan Rodgers accepted the offer of becoming the new manager of Liverpool, whom he led to runners-up position in the league in the 2013–2014 season before his dismissal in October 2015.
Brendan Rodgers became the manager of Celtic in May 2016. And after a period of time managing Leicester City, he returned to Celtic in June 2023 and won his third Scottish league title in his first season back at the club.
But the 4-3-3 is the formation that brough him the most success.
And the same formation was employed while managing Celtic.
With a sweeper keeper on attack duty in goal. The goalkeeper can be assigned any duty, the important thing is for him to become a passing option that would help avoid the opposition’s pressing game.
A back four made of two wing backs on support duty and two ball playing defenders on defend duty.
The wing backs are told to stay wider, to stretch the pitch when in possession and avoid the pressing game.
Also, the must give the formation its width, as the wingers will be tasked to cutting inside when needed.
The midfield three are a defensive midfielder on defend duty, a box-to-box midfielder and a central midfielder on support duty.
The midfield trio is tasked with recycling the ball and finding the best passing lanes for the attacking players.
Also, when not in possession, the box-to-box and the central midfielder are required to get into the face of their opponents, not giving them time on the ball.
Take more risks and mark tighter as player instructions for the box-to-box midfielder. And take more risks, get further forward, close down more and mark tighter for the central midfielder.
The right-sided winger is assigned an inside forward role, on attack duty. He asked to stay wider and mark tighter. And through the nature of the duty assigned to him, he becomes the second striker of the team.
On the left side, the winger is assigned a raumdeuter role. I don’t know if Brendan Rodgers uses this role, but it’s the best one, in my opinion, for the way Daizen Maeda plays for Celtic.
This player must be the space investigator, either dribbling down the touchline or cutting inside and creating dangerous goalscoring chances.
Mark tighter as player instructions for him.
And the striker is an advanced forward. Besides being tasked with finding the best channels to move into, he is also asked to mark tighter.
As we can see, the front five players are asked to press their opponents individually, not giving them time on the ball.
As mentality, positive. It can also be set on attacking if you are the best team in the league.
In possession, fairly wide attacking width, pass into space and play out of defence. Slightly shorter or standard passing directness and a slightly higher tempo.
Brendan Rodgers had a period when he favoured having high possession of the ball, but the current setup entices the team to be aggressive out of possession and incisive when they have the ball.
In transition, counter-press, counter and distribute the ball quickly and through short kicks, to the defence.
Out of possession, a mid block and a higher defensive line. This setup compacts the midfield area, forcing the opposition to either pass around the back looking for an opening – which might lead to a dangerous turnover. Or to play long balls, which can lead to losing possession of the ball.
This, coupled with the mark tighter player instructions and the press being triggered more often, makes Celtic be a nightmare to play against.
And prevent the goalkeeper short distribution which can make your players taking more advanced positions than on paper, but if it fails, they regroup to the set formation.
This tactic is not for every team. Do not expect the relegation bound team to be able to play well using this tactic, unless the players are fit for it.
I used it in my Lusitânia Lourosa save. I chose the club purely out of curiosity, as I have read many times that the club owner provides for this team financially a lot. Which I can confirm it happens.
We finished third in league, scoring 80 goals in the league, almost twice as many as the runner-up and conceding 28 goals.
We had 134 chances created and a non penalty xG of 1.62.
Overall, the tactic has been very fun to play with and if you combine it with a team that is expected to win most games comfortably, it can be amazing.
As said, Brendan Rodgers has achieved a lot during his career so far and I can’t wait to see what he does next.
