Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Rodgers: Discipline will see Celts through
BRENDAN Rodgers wants Celtic to use their heads more than their hearts as they look to oust Zenit St Petersburg from the Europa League.
The Scottish champions were well worth their 1-0 win in the first leg of their last-32 clash in Glasgow last week.
Ahead of the return game in Russia tonight, Northern Irishman Rodgers called for his players to control their emotions.
“Both games can be different,” said manager Rodgers. “It’s important you stay calm.
“In all our qualification games we have played since I have been at Celtic, whether you are home or away, it’s important to retain the emotion of the game.
“You have to be able to play quality football and, to do that, you have to stay calm and retain your emotion in the game, no matter how it goes.
“Thankfully, when we have been in that situation we have dealt very well with it, and hopefully we can do that again.”
Rodgers, however, admits further progress in the competition would be a brilliant achievement for Celtic.
“It would be a huge achievement for us,” he added.
“Obviously the competition itself and European football is notoriously very difficult now for ourselves but I think we showed in t he first leg how well we played.
“We played a perfect game really in how the players defended and attacked.
“Of course, we would have liked to have had one or two more goals but the concentration and quality in our game was at a very high level.
“We know that over the course of the two legs we need to replicate that but the players are ready for that.
“They showed last week they can play. If they play with aggression, quality and intensity, then it gives us a great opportunity.”
Celtic skipper Scott Brown also stressed the need to be disciplined in the Krestovsky stadium.
Brown said: “We’re still the underdogs and coming away from home is always hard but you have to believe in yourself.
“Yet again we’re facing another top quality club.
“You never know what can happen in football, it’ll be a long 90 minutes and we’ll be very disciplined and make sure we take our chances.
“It was difficult last week but yet again we upped our game and we played well in the game. Here’s hoping we can do that again.”