7 Brendan Rodgers Celtic presser takeaways on Champions League targets, new format and midfield dilemma
Brendan Rodgers insists he feels the "most ready" he has ever felt for a Celtic Champions League campaign.
The Hoops kickstart their involvement in the new format of Europe's premier competition tomorrow night when they face a home game against Slovan Bratislava. It is a fixture they are expected to win and one of quite a few where they should have a decent chance of building up a good points total.
It won't be easy of course, this is the Champions League, but there is an assured confidence about Rodgers and his side which is not out of place given their imperious start to the Premiership season. The Northern Irishman met the media today and was his usual bullish self.
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Here are some of the key takeaways from the presser.
Never felt as ready
“There’s absolutely no doubt, this feels like the most ready I’ve been as a Celtic manager coming into a Champions League campaign. Naturally because of the qualification phase and the doubt around all of that and trying to get players in later on on the back of that. Last season coming in, trying to find out about players and managing them through that and then seeing them in the competition. But having had a year under my belt back here and seeing all the players and being able to improve a lot of the areas that I want, there’s still areas that we want to improve in, but certainly the readiness is a great word. That feeling of arriving at this first game will be the best place that probably I’ve been in since I’ve been here.
Being favourites
I think it's normal. We come into every game and respect the opponent. Obviously there will be a narrative around this game, which I totally get, but I look at Bratislava and they have had four ties and eight games to get to this stage. So they have put in a massive amount of work and fight to reach this level. We cope with pressure every week. I think that's what being a Celtic player and in particular a Celtic manager is. So there's no change in that aspect. The key thing of course is my job then to regulate that pressure for the squad and allow them to go and express themselves on play and that's what we've been doing. We've been thinking about what we want to achieve from the summer. We now go into this first game, we're playing at home, we want to start off with a really good performance and get three points and we'll be bringing that energy to the game and intensity to hopefully make that happen. But the pressure is a part of the job here.
Narratives on Euro performance
You look at the nuts and bolts of it, people will say you only got four points and then they will cry about that, and the season before and the season before.... I look at it that last year was (down to) decisive moments. Apart from the game away in Madrid where we lost a man early on and got punished by a team that got to the quarter-final. I thought in the other games showed up well in. We could have won the Lazio game, and should never have lost it. Feyenoord at home we were good and won the game. Away to Feyenoord we were good and right in it, then we concede and lost two men and that's the challenge. For me looking at it I thought if we can strengthen the squad we can take another step closer, and we did that.
Play-off target
I think our intention firstly is to reach the play-off. I think if you look at the teams that go through then over the course of the eight games, I think you're really looking to reach that play-off phase. “That would certainly be the objective that I would set first and foremost and then from there you can then gauge it. It's a brilliant opportunity for us. And we know that in particular in this campaign over the course of the eight games, the home games will be absolutely vital for us. So bringing that energy from the pitch to encourage our support, which we know is unrivalled. I think everyone loves the possibility to come here but we know that we have to excite the supporters on the field. So that opportunity of course makes us really look forward to the game.
New format
I think everyone probably did feel that. Especially going into the draw and the expectation of what it was going to be like. I think that everyone would agree it was good. So, I'm hoping that the actual competition itself will be similar. I think it's fantastic over the different types of teams and games that we have. The club are going to some of these teams for the first time and the supporters are getting a chance to travel to some great cities. But from a football perspective, it's a great opportunity for us to test our qualities against some of the best teams, and that's always the big challenge for a coach and a manager.
Concern about extra games and burden on players: Yeah, I think it's something I’ve mentioned before. Our season is a 12-month season nowadays. Season really. You know, it used to be that you had a summer break. You’ve got all of those games plus the international games. I understand where it's coming from. I don’t think Rodri in this instance is moaning about the games, it's about the quality. The first thing that goes is technical ability, when you're fatigued you’re not giving the best product to the supporter. Every football player loves to play. They love to train. But they want to produce quality and be able to be at their best as often as they can be. It's a natural concern. I totally get it.
Midfield selection dilemma
It’s brilliant. It's absolutely what I would want because I know that I can't use three players the whole season. It's not about just one player in the midfield, it’s about the three. But it's also about having the numbers there that when you take one off where you have to recover when you can put one on, and it doesn't change. If you look at the level that Paulo Bernardo's been at since he came back, he’s now really settled back in, he now feels like he's a Celtic player. He came back to us late, he’s trained ever so well, he comes on in some games, and came into the Rangers game and was outstanding. But that's how it’ll work over the course of the season. There's not a starting 11. It's really important for us, how we play and the energy we play with, our subs are absolutely vital for us. That's what can give us an advantage. But there's a cost to how we play with the intensity in the work and everything, so that means our bench has to be strong and that's the readiness that we talk about that makes us feel like we’re in a really good place. The three that are starting, and the players know this from my perspective, everyone wants to start a game, of course, they do, but over the course of the season, a lot of them will do that at various times. Sometimes they’ll be on the bench to come into the game. It will just depend on the game that we play.
Added expectation of fees spent on players?
No. Not one bit, no. I don't set the fees. The player doesn't set the fee. It's what the clubs or sometimes the situation means that we have to pay. We've spent money, but we've brought a lot of money in. We brought more in. So, there's no pressure. The only pressure is the football pressure - the football pressure for us to want to do well and perform well.