Rodgers vows to engineer a way to play deadly duo Griffiths and Dembele together
BRENDAN RODGERS admits he has not given up working on a way to plug a partnership of Moussa Dembele and Leigh Griffiths into his Celtic team.
The Parkhead manager fully intended linking up his top strikers, worth 50 club goals combined last season, at Parkhead against Linfield before Griffiths was ruled out with a calf injury.
That left Dembele as the central striker of an experimental formation featuring a back three with midfield general Scott Brown occasionally dropping back to join a scarcely troubled defence.
The midfield mix was mesmerising for the visitors, with Olivier Ntcham, Callum McGregor and the advanced Tom Rogic complemented by width from Scott Sinclair and James Forrest.
The formation switches suggest that Rodgers has plans to ask more of his team in terms of their flexibility. That may yet include the Dembele-Griffiths (right) combination if he can find the ideal formation to operate in behind the deadly duo.
Rodgers has spoken about the issue since early last season when Dembele’s dynamite start kept the previous campaign’s 40-goal forward Griffiths on the bench.
When asked if plotting permutations with a back three might lead towards the partnership being formed, Rodgers said: ‘Sometimes when those two have played together they’ve made the same runs. They’re similar types of player who want to be in the box. ‘Sometimes the fluency is broken when the two play together. But it’s my job — and the coaches’ job — to say: “Can we find a way?” If not, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing. ‘It’s dependent on the game. Against a team like Linfield — and we’ll see it in the Scottish Premiership as well — you have to try to disorganise their back four. ‘Sometimes having two up there can do that, just depending on where your wingers and midfielders are. We’re trying to find different structures in the team that help but it has to be fluent.
‘That’s the key. We went to a back three with one controlling midfield player who could drop into the backline (Scott Brown), two advanced in front of that, two wingers to stretch the game.
‘Ninety-five percent of the two Linfield games were played in the final third of the pitch. And we know lots of teams now come and do that.
‘The players are understanding it better now. And with the positioning of the players inside, they can circulate the ball with confidence, knowing that because of their fitness they’ll hopefully come through in the end.
‘We won’t be perfect this year. It’s a gradual thing. But the more we work together, the more the players will get confident.
‘We’re starting to piece together the qualities that are needed to play in the Champions League, which are speed, power and technique.’
Negotiating a way past Rosenborg is imminently what is needed to move closer to playing in the Champions League, with the Norwegian league leaders in Glasgow on Wednesday.
Their biggest name — or biggest head, if his self-styled reputation still stands — is former Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner. Rodgers knows he can be a threat.
The Celtic boss added: ‘He was obviously a big talent when he was at Arsenal as a boy, but it’s always difficult to break through as a youngster at big clubs.
‘He’s one of these players that you’d say on his day has qualities. The big question is do they have enough days? Hopefully against us he won’t.
‘Rosenborg will be super organised, hard to break down, hard to beat. We’ve just got to find ways. They’re top of their league midway through the season, so it will be a tough test.’