‘Pounding in Paris not as bad as Barca’

Dani Alves. While the Parkhead side’s hopes of playing Europa League football after Christmas, as expected, will boil down to the meeting with Anderlecht.

“I am certainly nowhere near as disappointed as I was funnily enough against Barcelona last season,” said the Celtic manager.

“We conceded seven goals there when I first came in and I was very disappointed after that, but in a strange way I thought there were a lot of good moments in this game.

“We scored, started with good intent, got the goal, and you could see the belief in how we were playing and defending,” he added.

“But we gave the ball away in midfield and that gives them the opportunity to get the goal. The spell after the goal is probably the bit we are most disappointed with.”

Barring an unlikely 4-0 reverse against Bayern Munich, PSG will top Group B, and have now set an all-time Champions League record with 24 goals in the group stages – no fewer than half of which have come against Celtic. And as harsh as that has been, Rodgers is determined to keep learning.

“Of course there are lessons for us,” he said. “Can we keep the ball a bit better? In the second half we have it away loosely and I know we can defend better.

“If you look at it, four of the goals at least were either down to us either giving the ball away, or not defending the second phase of a set piece well enough.

“But there were lots of other spells where we showed our confidence. And you also have to admire the sheer quality of PSG.

“I think they only had 11 shots, but seven of them went in, with big quality. I would be very surprised if they don’t at least reach the Champions League final.

“If you think of the first goal, you lose possession of the ball, in lots of the games you will get away with it. Give it away against this team and they will punish you.”

Another blow for Celtic ahead of Sunday’s first showpiece of the domestic season was the departure of Mikael Lustig with injury early on.

Rodgers added: “We will see how Mikael is over the next couple of days. But I told the players that they gave absolutely everything. And we will be fine for Sunday, we are disappointed of course, but even more determined now to win on Sunday.”