RODGERS’ WRATH FOR ‘PRIDELESS’ DEFENCE
BRENDAN Rodgers accused his players of lacking pride in their defending after another lapse at the back cost Celtic a European goal in their Europa League qualifier against Suduva in Lithuania.
The manager has clearly run out of patience with Celtic’s under-performing defence which again conceded from a set-piece in their 1-1 first-leg draw.
The Scottish champions still remain huge favourites to reach the group stage – the return takes place in Glasgow next week – but while Rodgers was composed during his post-match briefing in Lithuania, the disappointment was written all over his face.
In what was by far the biggest public criticism of his team in over two years, Rodgers said: “We gave away a soft goal. That is a real, real concern now. We are not giving away many chances but we don’t defend the set-piece well enough.
“It’s an away European goal [Celtic scored], we go back next week to finish the job, but as I’ve said before I
look to the performance level and we weren’t quite where we would want to be.
“We seem to lack concentration. That is a problem for us. And a pride, really, in terms of defending. That is pretty clear. In games like this one, especially away from home, we have got to really demonstrate that hunger not to concede. And it was too easy for them.
“It was a terrific ball in, don’t get me wrong, but we have to defend it much better than that. It gave them some oxygen in the game when our start and early goal shouldn’t have.”
Rodgers needs to add defenders to his squad but the players who are there are performing well below expectation, including the midfielders when they are asked to get back and help out their team.
The Celtic manager said: “There are numerous answers to this. Whilst you work with what is here, you have to try and improve it, make it better. For me, it’s a level of concentration, a pride in your defending and an aggression in your defending.
“Listen, collectively we must do better. We know exactly what our routine is. It’s one of those ones, we don’t concede a lot of opportunities which is a plus because it shows we are controlling a lot of the game.
“In our last round we had four shots on our target over two games which showed we were the better team and we conceded three goals. It has to stop. That is something we have to work very hard on and analyse.”
When asked to expand on what he meant by pride, Rodgers added: “There has to be a greater desire not to concede. I think from the set piece situations that we are conceding from, it’s something really that is probably the easiest thing to defend in the game.
“There is no real movement. In that goal there was no block, no dummy runs to create space, it was a basic ball into the box.
“So, you have to deal with that and you have to have a mentality not to concede. Too often over this early part of the season we’ve conceded.”
The home side had two good second-half chances which brought out the best in Craig Gordon who was partly at fault for the Suduva goal.
Rodgers said: “I felt for the supporters tonight. They have come all the way out there, maybe 200 of them, on trains, buses, the whole thing. It’s a disappointing performance from them. Okay, they have seen a goal but we have to be much better.”