RODGERS LOOKS TO HIS B TEAM
Manager confident his side will be ‘stable and secure’ with Benkovic and Boyata together
FOR Celtic, short trips to continental Europe have begun to feel like a night in the
Fawlty Towers hotel. The evenings begin with good humour, bonhomie and high hopes of a memorable experience. Then the host turns hostile, a leak develops and the roof caves in.
As he continues to look for the Parkhead club’s first comfortable night away from home in the group stage of the Europa League, Brendan Rodgers will turn to an old-fashioned, no-thrills B&B in Norway.
The dripping, corrosive effect of injuries, suspensions and contract strops have finally eased up.
And the central-defensive partnership of Boyata and Benkovic has been as strong, comforting and supportive as a Slumberdown mattress.
When Belgian international Dedryck Boyata teams up with £13million Leicester City loan signing Filip Benkovic, clean sheets become the norm.
‘The two of them are top class,’ said the Celtic boss in Trondheim last night.
‘I was talking to someone the other day and I said that if I was managing in the (English) Premiership, you’d be happy with those two as centre-halves.
‘Both have different attributes. But they’re really stable and secure. They work very well off each other.
‘They love playing with us and it’s great for us as a team to have that stability. Sometimes we haven’t had that.’
When Celtic crashed out of the Champions League in a 2-1 defeat to AEK in Athens in August , their central defence was Jack Hendry and Jozo Simunovic.
Boyata had returned from his self-imposed huff — after the Parkhead club had rejected a bid from Fulham for his services — for the defeat in Salzburg in October.
But the raw figure of Hendry was still there alongside him and the SPFL champions lost three goals in a 3-1 reverse.
The 28-year-old Belgian performs demonstrably better with Benkovic by his side.
The pair have played together nine times and have kept seven clean sheets. Benkovic alone has kept eight in ten games.
Indeed, it was the 21-year-old Croatian defender that former scouting chief John Park really had his eye on when he settled for signing Simunovic three years ago. By a roundabout route, Celtic got the right man in the end.
‘To have those two and their qualities gives us a really strong base,’ added Rodgers.
‘Any team, if you’ve got that stability in your centre-halves, then that’s important.
‘But I think that it’s a collective thing. The team feed off that confidence. Defensively, though, it’s about the team and pressing from the front.’
Think of Celtic’s pressing game and one figure in particular tends to come to mind.
For the last five weeks, Celtic have coped fine without the harrying and hounding of Scott Brown.
When he travelled with the squad to Norway yesterday following his knee problem, the captain put himself straight back into the first-team reckoning.
Yet the sounds emanating from his manager suggested that it might yet be too soon for Brown to make his comeback.
After the team recorded five wins in seven games in his absence, it also makes no sense to rush things.
‘I’ll have a think on it, we’ll see where he’s at. He’s trained well,’ said Rodgers.
‘You’re always having to be careful. Just being fairly fit isn’t enough for me.
‘You have to be fit enough for the game, no matter how good the player is.
‘So that’s something we will just consider overnight and see where we’re at tomorrow.
‘Broony’s a brilliant player. It’s just a question of considering if this game comes a bit too quick for him.
‘Does the weekend come a fraction too quick for him? I spoke to Scott. He recognises where he’s at in terms of his fitness level.
‘He’s very much a team player, he’s the leader of the group and he respects also how well the team has done over the last eight weeks.
‘The most important thing is that he is now back available, back training and working well.
‘The likes of him and Olivier Ntcham now give that added strength to the squad, which is very important.’
Celtic have never won an away game in the Europa League group stage and, if that statistic is to change, tonight is as good a time as any.
The Parkhead side have played Rosenborg five times in the last 16 months, winning three times, scoring five goals and keeping clean sheets in their last two visits to Trondheim.
They enter the game boosted, too, by a thrilling 2-1 home win over Bundesliga side RB Leipzig in their last game.
‘Leipzig at home was a great step for us in relation to beating a top-class team and in the way we want to play,’ said Rodgers.
‘To show that resilience and mentality, and to come through when it did go against us a wee bit towards the end...
‘We still found that mentality to kick on — and that’s what the good teams can do.
‘It was a fantastic result and one which everyone would have looked at and felt it was a really good performance.’
For Celtic, a trip to Trondheim is now as familiar and comforting as a game in Aberdeen or Inverness. They know the place well, so if the wretched away record in Europe continues tonight, there won’t be a place to hide.
‘The stats are always rolled out for Celtic in Europe and it’s always notoriously difficult,’ said Rodgers.
‘But we are playing in a good way and we have clarity back into our game in terms of the roles and the expectancy of each player, what’s required to play at our level.
‘If you assess the group, three of the four teams are champions of their country and the ones who aren’t are nearly at the very top of the Bundesliga.
‘I’m not sure there are too many other groups, either in the Champions League or Europa League, where there is that mix of team in it.
‘The champions of Norway, the champions of Austria, who have shown they are a powerful team, and Leipzig — and everyone is clear on their development. Then ourselves as champions.
‘It’s a really tough group, but it’s a great learning curve for us and we have an opportunity over the next two games to come out of it, which is what we want.’