Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE GAME Ex-don Christie downs his old team-mates to land Rodgers his 7th cup in a row as Celts boss
BRENDAN RODGERS last night offered up a prayer to the footballing Gods after watching Ryan Christie seal his seventh straight major title.
Christie smashed home the only goal of a dramatic Betfred Cup final win over Aberdeen – the team he joined on loan last season and came close to signing for on a permanent basis during the summer.
The Hampden victory means Celtic have secured the first leg of a potential Treble Treble as the remarkable Rodgers’ trophy sweep continues.
And the manager smiled: “It’s the footballing gods that we saw today. I have said this before but when I came in Ryan wasn’t ready to play week in, week out.
“We could see there was a talent there but for the level we were trying to attain and get to you need to have that physicality and you need to have that power as well as the quality. He’s always had the quality.
I felt he needed to get some games.
“It’s a great demonstration of the different types of loan you can get. This was a development loan.
“I’ve got good relations with Derek Mcinnes. We both looked at it and we both felt he still needed to do more in the big games.
“But there’s absolutely no doubt he went away and got that physicality in body strength and durability in terms of how we want to play and the intensity. He came back in the summer and it was just about waiting for the moment and in the last eight or nine weeks he has shown that.
“It’s fantastic to see his status grow now and in the big games he’s shown
really that he has that quality to play for the biggest teams. I’m delighted for him.
“That’s the football gods for you. Lo and behold he scored against the team he was at for 18 months.
“It was a wonderful finish, a great run off the ball. The keeper made a good save but he reacts very well to it and finishes it and it ends up being the winner.”
Christie struck in injury time at the end of the first half shortly after former Celtic winger Gary Mackay-steven was rushed to hospital following a sickening clash of heads with Dedryck Boyata.
The Belgian defender needed to be stitched up by medics on the side of the pitch while Mackay-steven was out cold and Rodgers believes the way his players responded immediately after this drama which proved crucial to the outcome – especially after Scott Sinclair missed a penalty for the Hoops.
He said: “For both the players it was tough. I could hear Dedryck getting stitches at the side of the field. He must have had five or six stitches in there.
“But he went back into the game and kept his concentration.
“Overall, it was a very satisfying win for us today. I think they showed a lot of heart and a lot of fight. After the run of the games we’ve had, and especially after Thursday night, it’s a really, really tough game to come in and play against Aberdeen because they’re very physical and very strong.
“To show the quality for the goal, that was probably our biggest moment in the first half. We had a sequence of passes and worked our way through their man marking and ended up with a great goal.
“My only disappointment with the second half was we could have been more clinical in key moments, especially when you’re having to defend a bit deeper.
“We broke away fantastic, the pace we broke away with and the support we had up there but we never made the last pass, which then makes the game a lot tighter towards the end than it should have been.”