For all of the success Brendan Rodgers has had with Celtic, he is aware that expectations have only really been met; not surpassed.
Managing a club where the fans generally expect you "to win every game," manufacturing relative success in Europe on the back of such domestic dominance is something of a non-runner; even Paris St Germain, for all their wealth, have not been able to bridge this gap.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, the former Liverpool man realises that such an existence will not satisfy him for long. A managerial career that he would like to explore into the Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger realms of 1000 or so games, "I know I won’t do the other 500-odd games here at Celtic."
A man (and manager) who has taken his (un)fair share of abuse, the longer one pays attention to what the Antrim man has to say, the easier it becomes to warm to him.
Discussing the accusations that he had become a victim of his own near-success with Liverpool (the tan, the teeth, the shift of weight), Rodgers opened up on the surrounding circumstances that forced him into taking a look at how he was living his life:
Before I got the Liverpool job, I lost both my parents in quick succession. My mum was 53 and died on February 3, 2010. That summer, I got the Swansea job and my dad became ill. In November 2010, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and, less than a year later, he died.
You really reflect on mortality then in your life. I was looking at myself and thinking, “I don’t want to die this young, I have my own children”. This probably happens to many people. Just because you are a football manager, it doesn’t make you any different.
Although to people like former Rangers man Joey Barton, Rodgers resembled someone going through a "mid-life crisis," the Celtic boss suggests that he simply knew he wanted "to get healthy ... to change."
The full interview with Brendan Rodgers can be read here.
