The role of the full backs versus their assignment under Ange Postecoglou and overall tendencies in Celtic’s defense are early-season trends among the analysis questions I receive.
Looking back at Rodgers’ time at his previous club Leicester City, he has clear principles that are evident in his team’s playing style that have similarities to the way Celtic have played the past two years.
Celtic have lined up with a back four which Rodgers favours and a different combination of a three in midfield with two wingers and a striker is prevalent in both. Rodgers’ attacking principles are methodical and expansive.
He likes his team to be the protagonists in the game, implementing their playing style on the opposition and dominating possession. With this, he will look to his keepers and back four to build the play from the back and circulate the ball across the back to find the free man in midfield.
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Hart and his back four will feel at ease playing this approach since it is quite similar to the way the Celtic have played under Postecoglou. The role the fullbacks will play during the build-up is an intriguing difference.
In the past, Rodgers has favored fullbacks who can run up the length of the field and extend the field wide at the touchline. This enables his wingers to overload and receive between the lines, like James Maddison does on the other wing, or alternatively, to drop into the half spaces in midfield to do the opposite and make inverted runs between the fullback and centre-backs, as Harvey Barnes did at Leicester.
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This is very similar to the way the Celtic have played under Postecoglou, therefore Hart alongside his back four will be comfortable playing this way. An interesting difference is the role the fullbacks will have during the build-up.
Rodgers in the past has favoured vertical and dynamic fullbacks who get up the length of the pitch and stretch the pitch wide on the touchline. This allows for his wingers to make inverted runs between the fullback and centre-backs as Harvey Barnes has done at Leicester, or conversely, having the wingers drop into the half spaces in midfield to overload and receive between the lines like James Maddison does on the opposite wing.
Rodgers has also shown a preference to use two players at the base of midfield to help facilitate build-up (although Leicester has rotated to a single pivot at times). He often deployed his two in midfield quite deep into their own half for two reasons. The first is the safety and security of building the ball up in dangerous areas, forming a box between the centre-backs and the two midfielders to safely transition the ball further up the pitch. Secondly, positioning his midfielders in deeper and more narrow positions invites opposition midfielders to also push up higher and more narrow, creating space out wide for the fullbacks to receive and move forward.
With the players at his disposal, it will be interesting to see whether Rodgers continues his preference for pushing his fullbacks high and wide or experiment with inverting his fullbacks into midfield like Taylor has done this season from left-back. Rodgers did experiment during Leicester’s 2022/23 preseason by inverting Timothy Castagne into midfield, so we could see Celtic form Rodgers’ preference for a double pivot by bringing in Taylor to sit alongside McGregor during Celtic’s build-up phase.
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