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What Brendan Rodgers told Falkirk players as Celtic boss made John McGlynn's day

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers was full of praise for Falkirk
-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


Falkirk gave Celtic an almighty scare as they became the first team this season to score twice against them.

The Bairns twice led at Parkhead, through a stunning opener from Ross MacIver and then Finn Yeats' well-placed header on the stroke of half-time. The Hoops came back into it after brining on several usual starters as subs and ended up running riot to rack up a 5-2 scoreline.

But they had trailed until the 70th minute and Brendan Rodgers was full of praise for the Championship side post-match, rating them as the best team his side have faced so far. It wasn't just the media he was saying that to either, as John McGlynn revealed he went in to tell them to their face.

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The Falkirk boss explained: "We can take great belief from having come here and played the way we played and made a statement that Celtic had to make four changes around the hour mark to try and turn the game in their favour, which they did. Players individually were playing against really good players here. Can you learn anything individually and then as a team can you learn anything because we play in a similar way.

“I was pleased, I mean big plaudits to Brendan, he came in after the game in our dressing room and complimented our players and so a great thank you for him for doing that, that will help our players as well. We'll take the belief that we came here and scored two goals against Celtic, nobody else has done that. This will not hurt us mentally.”

It took the introduction of £20million worth of talent for the Hoops to get control of the game and McGlynn reckons that's an indication of how well his players did.

He added: "It speaks volumes for the effort they put in and the way they played, to be in a situation where we are leading Celtic 2-1. We came with a game plan, I think it kind of worked.

“Obviously the other ones that started are not exactly cheap either That was a statement, a back-handed compliment to us. Yeah, fair enough Falkirk, you've done well but here's the big guns coming on, let's see how you can handle that. And of course, the legs kind of fell off a little bit, little bit of gaps opened up and Nicky Hogarth had to make two or three more saves but you had to expect that to some extent.”