I parked the bus in our Christmas ad but I’ll never do it on pitch. It would take a fleet of them to stop PSG
TOMORROW, HAMPDEN, 3PM, BT 1 Bren in forward gear as he plots road ahead
the game was different to that after Barcelona.
“When I watched the game again and analysed it, I thought we were excellent in the first 20 minutes. How we defended, how we pressed, how aggressive we were. We earned the right to play.
“Of course, a mixture of us not defending as well as we’d have liked and the speed and quality they had meant that, suddenly, we were 4-1 behind at half-time.
“We started the second half well for 20 minutes. Then through a mixture of a little bit of tiredness they scored more. But you also have to say the exceptional finishing of Alves, Cavani and Verratti had a lot to do with it.
“They had 11 shots and scored seven goals. You have to admire how clinical they were.
“We just got outdone by a really top-level team. You have to then come away from it, look at that in isolation, learn from it and move on. That is what we will do.
“It’s also realising that may not be enough sometimes, against the level that we play against. So I’m not going to worry about it. I will focus on my work and developing us not just for the short term but for the longer term.”
Mercifully Celtic won’t be up against the likes of PSG every week but Rodgers won’t undersell the difficulty against Motherwell at Hampden tomorrow.
He is determined to keep hold of the League Cup but is relishing going up against fellow Northern Irishman Stephen Robinson.
Rodgers said: “I was aware of Stephen but didn’t come across him until I was at Liverpool.
“I knew about the good work he was doing with the IFA and I knew David Healy as a player, but I’d never met them before. It’s great to see him doing so well, he has re-energised Motherwell. “They have a direct way of playing. Get it up to the front two, get it wide and into the box. They defend with aggression and are committed, so they make it difficult. “In Louis Moult they have a finisher who is good in the box, strong in the air and he has a subtlety to his finishing, as he showed against Rangers. “We expect a tough game but we’ll be ready. We’ll try to impose our game. It’s what we do.”