Rodgers frustration as Bhoys come Acropolis

CELTIC manager Brendan Rodgers admitted that the lack of summer signings cost his team dearly after their hopes of Champions League football were left in ruins in Athens last night.

Goals early in both halves from AEK Athens left Celtic with a mountain to climb and, although they pulled one back to set up a grandstand finish, they now go to the Europa League.

The former Liverpool manager said earlier this month that his squad is weaker than it was 12 months ago and he pointed to his previous club as evidence of what Celtic should have done.

“I’ve said what I wanted to say in terms of us needing improvement and wanting to improve,” Rodgers said.

“You only need to look at Liverpool who got to the Champions League final and went out and got great signings and strengthened the squad.

“I’ve always said that we needed to strengthen, no matter how good we’ve been over the last couple of years.

“So that’s something hopefully we can do. It’s no good for us now, but we’ll pick ourselves up and it’s important we have European football this year.”

On the game itself, Rodgers blamed soft defending for the exit.

“Over the course of the two games it’s disappointing to have that much control and opportunities in the games and concede soft goals. We gave ourselves a chance at the end and we threw everything at it.

“I thought a lot of our build-up play in that final third was worthy of something from the game, but you can’t defend that softly and in the end we were punished for it.”