Ian Holloway has first-hand experience of what Brendan Rodgers has just done at Celtic and he says, “It was wrong”.
He left Plymouth mid-season in 2007 to join Leicester and ended up getting the midlands club relegated.
Talking on talkSPORT (Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast, Fri, 8am) he has said that it’s one of the biggest regrets of his career and that if he had the time again he wouldn’t have done it. Holloway also claimed that Rodgers must have planned his move to Leicester.
“I left Plymouth and went to Leicester with a third of the season left,” Holloway said. “I shouldn’t have left. I thought it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. We got relegated.
“I didn’t anticipate the hatred I would get. I didn’t think it would stir that up. Brendan, I thought he would have been that sought after, after the treble treble with Celtic, I hope he doesn’t regret it. Why wouldn’t Chelsea have come in for him in the summer?
“I wouldn’t have done it again, I really regret it. It was wrong. You’ve got to think about leaving and you should leave with dignity. Brendan is going to have to live with that.
“This wasn’t a spontaneous decision either. It must have been talked about before. You can’t agree all of that in one day.”
OPINION
Things didn’t work out for Holloway at Leicester and he left within a year of joining. Things could well be different for Rodgers. He’s joining a club with a good squad and a big bag of money to spend in the summer. Holloway is right about one thing though. Why leave mid-season when you could finish what you started at Celtic and join a big club with your head held high? It’s a big coup for Leicester to land a manager like Rodgers and it’s laughable to suggest that they wouldn’t have waited in the summer for him. They could even have announced it now and left Rodgers to play out his retirement at Celtic with dignity. The feelings in Celtic are running high and Rodgers won’t be welcome back there agin. It’s a big fall from grace for the manager who could seemingly do no wrong north of the border, and it could be a decision he lives to regret.