BRENDAN RODGERS rued the fact Celtic failed to function during a “wasted 45 minutes” in the tense 1-1 stalemate with Club Brugge at Parkhead last night.
The Hoops were forced to settle for a point to take their tally to an acceptable eight in the new-look Champions League format.
There are three games still to play – away next month to Dinamo Zagreb, at home in January to Young Boys and then in the Midlands against Aston Villa – so there is still much work for Rodgers and his players to do if they hope to make progress in Europe’s premier tournament.
Celtic got lost in a maze of mistakes in the opening 45 minutes against a highly competent and well-drilled Belgian side and they didn’t help their cause with a horrendous own goal by the normally rock-like and reliable Cameron Carter-Vickers in the 26th minute.
EURO REFLECTIONS…Brendan Rodgers makes his point. Images courtesy Celtic TV.
Thankfully, the hosts displayed some much-needed true grit after the turnaround and Daizen Maeda produced a little piece of magic on the hour mark to whip in a spectacular equaliser.
Try as they might, the Hoops just could not produce a winner and now the Euro focus switches to Croatia on December 10 in the quest to to gatecrash the next stage.
A thoughtful Rodgers reflected: “It wasn’t so good in the first-half. Too passive, not enough belief with the ball, and in the second-half it was much more like it.
“In the first-half, we weren’t there. Not enough intensity, not enough hard running to get the ball, and when you do that against good teams at this level they’ll play through you and that’s exactly what they did too often.
“In the second-half, I thought we were the much better team.
“They’re a man-marking team, so you have to work them and move them and we did that so well for the goal.
“It was a brilliant goal from Daizen and from there it looked like we could go and win the game.”
The Irishman, speaking to Celtic TV, continued: “We’ll take the point having wasted 45 minutes, really.
“We played much better in the second-half and deserved that equaliser.
“There are three more games to go, nine points to play for and still on track for where we want to get to.”
BLUNDER BHOY…Cameron Carter-Vickers reacts to his dreadful own goal.
The Belgians had a goal ruled after a VAR intervention in the 69th minute in a heartstopping moment and Rodgers added: “I’ve been in enough of these games here where a good European team like that score late on.
“We’ve all been here and it’s a big disappointment.
“But I didn’t feel that. I felt that once we got the goal, once we played our game, once we were much more aggressive, we looked like the team that could go on and score.
“I just had that feeling that it was going to come.
“But, if you can’t win it, make sure you take your point and, as we’ve seen in Atalanta, a point at this level can be very important.”
BLUNDERS AND BRILLIANCE IN STALEMATE
