DOWN , OUT , BUT NOT DISGRACED

Celts should be proud of European turnaround

FOR Celtic, the road from Gibraltar to Manchester’s Etihad Stadium spanned five months, 12 matches and six countries. Air miles alone can’t do justice to the distance they travelled along the way.

Brendan Rodgers’ Parkhead reign began with a 1-0 defeat to Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar in a Champions League qualifier in July.

Described as the most embarrassing European result in the club’s history, that night taught Rodgers a few things about his new charges. Just how far they had to go to end their first group-stage campaign in three years with a creditable, composed 1-1 draw away to English giants Manchester City.

‘From the first game we played on the astroturf in Gibraltar, it’s fair to say we came a long way,’ said a grinning Rodgers.

‘I think that game was a nice little wake-up call for the players.

‘There had been a lot of good work done over the pre-season, but that showed me there was still a way to go with these players in terms of belief, that they could actually go out there and lose a game like that.

‘It can happen; the pitch and everything else. But it sharpened the teeth in many aspects of what we wanted to do. I said at the time when it was supposedly embarrassing and it was this and it was that, I knew when we got home we would win the (home) game. It also told me a couple of wee things early on about the fragility of the team.’

The fragility returned briefly in the Nou Camp in Barcelona, where Group C began with an embarrassing 7-0 defeat.

That Celtic finished bottom of the group with three points from 18 will strike some as nothing to crow about. With the exception of Moussa Dembele, the team which drew with City in the Etihad was pretty much a Ronny Deila side. A group of players persistently found wanting in European games.

Under Rodgers, the difference in Scott Brown is striking. The Celtic captain looked comfortable in the Champions League. Tom Rogic, James Forrest and Stuart Armstrong are also unrecognisable from the confidence-shorn players who lost a Scottish Cup semi-final to Rangers last season.

If, in the coming months, Gary Mackay-Steven joins the ranks of the resurrected, Celtic should look to bottle the recuperative powers of their manager and flog them in the club superstore.

‘In every game this season, Scott has looked like a top Champions League player,’ said Rodgers.

‘Stuart and Tom Rogic at City on Tuesday, their bodywork, energy and ability to press — really going for the game right to the very end — was great.

‘That’s your job. Yes, it’s to win trophies and all that sort of stuff, but it’s ultimately about what can you do for the players? Can you help them be the best they can?

‘Thankfully, they have belief in what they are doing and that always helps. You just need a bit of inspiration from somewhere. You have somehow to find in the individual that emotion which hooks them into wanting to do it.

‘For example, you know Stuart Armstrong can run for 24 hours a day. But sometimes you have to think and run. So how do you hook into that to help him to develop?’

Armstrong, more than most, lost his way in the final days of the Deila experiment. That night against the Red Imps, Rodgers saw what was needed to take Celtic to the Champions League and to restore the club’s self-esteem.

‘It was about creating a mindset to at least believe they could qualify,’ he admitted.

‘There was lots of negativity about qualification and fitness and Hampden (the Rangers loss). So our first thing was to create a mindset and say: “Come on, we can work and work well”. Then we rolled out the tactical element of it and I think you see now from that period at the beginning in the games where we had them set up to work and press, but now we can offer much more to the game, I believe, in an offensive manner.’

The willingness to go toe to toe with Man City on Tuesday was striking. For Scottish fans, European football has recently been an exercise in watching parked buses. When the Celtic boss stated that he wanted his team to play without fear in the Champions League, it sounded fanciful. Now, after backto-back away draws in Germany and Manchester, that’s not the case.

‘You can participate, but for me you need to be competitive,’ said Rodgers.

‘That’s a mindset. You can sit off and suffer and sit in the box for 85 minutes, but I like to be the aggressor.

‘If you stand off good players, they will run rings round you all day. But how good can they be if you go right up against them?

‘Every now and then they will earn their £200,000 a week and play around you a couple of times — that’s okay. Let’s see if they can do it again and earn their money.

‘For us to impose our style and quality on the game... the whole campaign has gone from that first game to finish off with draws that could easily have been wins at two tough places in Monchengladbach and Manchester City.

‘It’s okay doing it domestically — but can you go and impose that in the biggest jungles in the world?

‘We’ve got to have that confidence and there’s no doubt about the confidence in which they played the game against Man City.’

There will be no European football after Christmas — no Europa League as a consolation prize. Rodgers regrets the small margins, the moments when composed finishing may have earned his team seven points rather than three and beaten Monchengladbach to third.

Yet the truth is this. The investment Celtic made in a topdrawer manager is paying off. The European adventure ends with few regrets.

Rodgers said: ‘We will always be in a tough group, any Scottish team will always be in that pot. You are always going to be up against it. The spin on that is it was brilliant for us.

‘Because you improve when you work and play against the best. Our players were against the best in this group and it was a good measure. It’s safe to say they did Scotland proud.’