Celtic end a week to forget with win over Jags, and now wait for badboy Dedryck to apologise
The toughest week of Brendan Rodgers’ tenure ended on a decidedly upbeat note at Firhill yesterday.
On the pitch, the Celtic boss watched his team shrug off the temporary fright of a Thistle equaliser to cruise into the Betfred Cup quarter-finals. And off it, he revealed Dedryck Boyata is set to make a dramatic return in Thursday’s Europa League play-off against Suduva – provided the refusenik apologises to coaching staff and fellow players tomorrow. “I had a long chat with Dedryck the other day,” said Rodgers, who knows only too well that with the Italian, as well as English, transfer windows now shut, the player’s options are limited. “We have just created a wee bit of distance from what happened last week. “Everyone makes mistakes but I also think if there is a mistake made people need a chance to redeem themselves. “I had that situation with Luis Suarez at Liverpool and that worked out all right. “Of course, before anyone can rejoin the group, there will have to be an apology to the staff and players. “As long as that happens, I would like to have him involved because he’s a top-class player and I know he is a good guy.” What the Hoops support make of that remains to be seen but Leigh Griffiths was happy to toe the party line. “We’ll welcome Dedryck back into the group next week. The manager and everyone above us will deal with the matter internally,” he said. “As players, we just focus on the job in hand. There will be no resentment. Odsonne missed the game on Tuesday as well and there’s no resentment there. “We need to move on and forget about it. We’ve got a massive game on Thursday and if Dedryck comes back in, we’ll welcome him back.” The striker’s stance was, he admitted, a partially pragmatic one as he believes the Hoops defence was to blame for the club’s Champions League exit. “We dominated the ball going forward in Athens and on another night we’d have scored three or four,” said Griffiths. “But it’s about defending. And if we can’t do that properly, we don’t deserve to be in the Champions League. “If we can’t defend simple crosses and do what we’ve done for the past two years we don’t deserve to be there. “It was two basic errors which meant we conceded two goals. If we defended properly, we’d have been in the play-off.
Rodgers’ team selection yesterday acknowledged the importance of the Suduva tie with half a dozen changes made to the starting line-up from the team that crashed to AEK in Athens in midweek. Scotland U-21 internationalist Mikey Johnston got a start and the teenager caught the eye early here too, bursting in behind Thistle’s defence down the right to win his side a corner. It came to nothing but Jags keeper Cammy Bell had to show alertness a couple of minutes later when Tom Rogic sent a shot in on goal from a Leigh Griffiths cutback. He was unable, though, to prevent the Scotland striker from opening the scoring with a deflected strike from 12 yards out after Scott Sinclair had spun away from Christie Elliott on the byline. Thistle worked away and rewarded for their endeavour against what was a flat Celtic when they notched an excellent equaliser. Aidan Fitzpatrick, only just on the pitch as a second-half substitute, slalomed his way through the Celtic midfield and then sent Andrea Mbuyi-Mutombo in down the right. The angle was tight but the Congolese was up to the challenge and netted in off the far post with a terrific strike. Unfortunately, it only served to provoke Celtic, who went back ahead with a close range finish from Moussa Dembele, another introduction off the bench. Cristian Gamboa supplied the cross to the Frenchman and the Costa Rican claimed a second assist a couple minutes later when teeing up Rogic from even closer range. “Their substitutes were stronger than ours, I think that showed,” said Thistle manager Alan Archibald. “But we probably gave them a wee fright there. We got a goal and did well. “Young Aidan Fitzpatrick came on and got an assist for Andre. “We were delighted to get the goal and, for 70 minutes, I felt we matched them in terms of their give and gos and their one-twos and combination play.”