‘Proud of my team’
● Rodgers salutes Celtic display and looks to book Europa League spot after Champions exit
Brendan Rodgers believes Celtic are making the progress necessary to enjoy an extended run in European football in the second half of the season despite being eliminated from the Champions League.
Their 2-1 defeat at home to Bayern Munich last night ended any prospect of reaching the last 16 of Europe’s elite club tournament. But Celtic manager Rodgers took huge encouragement from many aspects of his team’s display as they now focus their efforts on ensuring they finish third in Group B and progress to the knockout stages of the Europa League after Christmas.
While he was left to bemoan the defensive frailty which contributed to Kingsley Coman and Javi Martinez scoring for Bayern either side of Callum Mcgregor’s superbly worked and finished goal for Celtic, Rodgers was gratified by his players’ overall contribution.
“The disappointment in our changing room afterwards shows you how well we played,” said Rodgers, pictured. The level of composure and quality we played with, I was very proud of the team. We caused them lots of problems. Individually, of course, they are world class and you can see that at times.
“We are disappointed with the goals. You get punished at this level. But overall we looked like a proper team who are developing at this level. OK, we are disappointed to have lost, but there were so many positives from the game.
“Now what we have to do is go on and finish it off in our last two games in the group. PSG away next time will be a big test for us again but we come back here for the final group game against Anderlecht and we want to achieve what we set out to achieve, which is to have European football after Christmas. If we can do that it’s a great marker and a great measure of how the players are progressing.
“The idea is to get there, first and foremost. There are still some crack teams who will be involved in the Europa League after Christmas. So we want to get there playing a level of football that can allow us to go as far as we possibly can. I think tonight we showed with that performance that we are improving our level at this very high standard.”
Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes, whose side have secured their place in the last 16 along with PSG with two rounds of fixtures to spare, was generous in his praise of Celtic.
“They played an amazing game tonight, they had a super support and it was a wonderful experience for us here,” said Heynckes.
“We knew it would be a difficult game, we knew it would be challenging but we have to compliment our players for getting the job done with so many changes in our team.”
It has been widely expected ever since the group stage draw was made but Celtic’s formal elimination from the Champions League was no less disappointing for Brendan Rodgers and his players.
They were unable to maximise the opportunity afforded to them against a Bayern Munich side shorn of several of their biggest and most influential names. It was a muchimproved home performance by Celtic against one of Europe’s heavyweight sides, restoring some credibility in the aftermath of the record 5-0 defeat they suffered against Paris Saint-germain the previous month. When Callum Mcgregor cancelled out Kingsley Coman’s opener with just over a quarter of an hour remaining, Celtic looked set to claim a point which would have maintained their faint hopes of reaching the last 16 of the Champions League. But Javi Martinez rapidly reclaimed the advantage for the German champions who will join PSG in the knockout stage after Christmas. Celtic must now focus on their bid to retain third place in Group B at the expense of Anderlecht to claim the consolation prize of progress to the last 32 of the Europa League.
The manner of Coman’s first -half breakthrough for Bayern would have been doubly frustrating for Rodgers, given both the sloppiness of his team’s defending and the overall positivity of their approach to the contest which had preceded it.
Before Coman took advantage of an amateurish blunder by Celtic’s backline to give the visitors their 22nd-minute lead, there had been no shortage of encouragement for the Scottish champions and their supporters.
In sharp contrast to the tentative and almost passive nature of their play when they were crushed by PSG here on matchday one, there was a dynamism and positivity to Celtic’s work which suggested they were capable of giving Bayern a far less comfortable evening in Glasgow’s east end.
James Forrest was prominent in many of Celtic’s best moments. The winger’s pace and directness came agonisingly close to delivering a fifthminute goal for his team as he surged on to Kieran Tierney’s pass and whipped over an inviting cross from the right. It found its way to Stuart Armstrong on the corner of the six-yard box but the midfielder wastefully shanked his shot wide.
Forrest continued to cause consternation in the Bayern defence, raising the volume among the home fans again after a clever exchange of passess with Armstrong allowed him find space to deliver another teasing cross which found no takers.
Mcgregor, a little surprisingly selected ahead of Tom Rogic for the central attacking midfield role, showed plenty of willingness to drive forward and he created a first sight of goal of the night for Moussa Dembele. The French striker, making his first Champions League group stage start of the campaign, shrugged off Jerome Boateng’s challenge but dragged his shot wide of Sven Ulreich’s left-hand post.
There was a sense that Celtic’s failure to secure something tangible for such a bright opening could come back to bite them and so it proved. The warning sign was there when David Alaba and Coman carved their way into the penalty area in the 20th minute with only a well-timed tackle by Dedryck Boyata cutting out the danger.
But Boyata was among those culpable when Bayern made it 1-0 just two minutes later. The Belgian defender allowed a long punt upfield by Ulreich to sail over his head, with Coman pouncing on his hesitancy. Craig Gordon had charged to the edge of his penalty area but his attempt to intercept merely resulted in Coman nudging the ball beyond him.
Gordon claimed the Frenchman had done so with the aid of his left hand but the match officials saw nothing amiss. Coman steadied himself and rolled home a left-foot shot from the edge of the penalty area.
It was a sucker punch for Celtic but their response was impressive. They were on the front foot for much of the remainder of the first half, albeit without ever creating a clear-cut chance to equalise. The closest they came was when a brilliant interception by Alaba denied Dembele a close-range tapin after fine build-up play by Armstrong.
Celtic carried that momentum into the start of the second half when Ulreich was forced into his first notable save of the night, diving to his right to keep out Armstrong’s stinging shot at the end of a sweeping move by the hosts.
Bayern attempted to draw the sting out of the contest, content to try to keep possession in the middle third of the pitch and wait for Celtic to over-commit themselves.
Rodgers tried to inject fresh impetus into his side’s play, making his first change of the night with Rogic replacing Scott Sinclair who had struggled to impose himself on proceedings. Celtic needed a smart save by Gordon, however, to prevent James Rodriguez doubling Bayern’s lead in the 67th minute.
That looked like a crucial contribution by the big keeper
when Celtic drew level seven minutes later. It was a superbly-worked goal, the outstanding Forrest piercing the Bayern defence with a pass off the outside of his right boot to pick out Mcgregor who drove a low shot under Ulreich.
Celtic now looked every inch the side with the initiative to go on and find a winner but instead found themselves behind again just three minutes later. Coman and Alaba combined down the left, the latter’s cross headed home by Martinez who suffered a painful clash of heads with Nir Bitton in the process, both players requiring lengthy treatment.
It contributed to six minutes of stoppage time but Bayern held out with relative comfort for all three points.