Rodgers has eyes on an early prize
WHEN the Wasps arrive at Celtic Park tomorrow night there won’t be a fraction of the buzz generated by the forthcoming Champions League visits of Manchester City and Barcelona.
For Brendan Rodgers, though, the Betfred Cup quarter-final against Alloa Athletic is hugely important if he is to complete his Parkhead mission statement of asserting Celtic’s domestic dominance.
Under Ronny Deila, the club made it five in a row but, as chief executive Peter Lawwell conceded as he announced yesterday’s annual results, Celtic’s performance in European football under the Norwegian last season was ‘poor’.
Rodgers has already secured a coveted return to the group stage of European football’s elite tournament. That will ensure that yesterday’s pre-tax profit of £500,000 for the year to June 30 should be significantly beefed up in 12 months’ time.
And with the final of the Betfred Cup now moved forward to November 27 from its previous March slot, Rodgers is desperate to get his hands on the first trophy of his Celtic reign as quickly as possible.
That is why the Celtic boss is unlikely to make wholesale changes tomorrow against Jack Ross’ League One leaders.
‘Brendan Rodgers made it clear when he came here in his first Press conference that his aim was to continue with the domination of Scottish football,’ said Parkhead assistant boss Chris Davies.
‘That’s about winning trophies, so this is a big game for us. We’ve got an opportunity here to get to the semi-finals and a chance to win a trophy before Christmas.
‘For us, it’s about picking the best team to win the game.
‘We respect this competition a lot, so there’s no chance we will be thinking any less of Alloa. To do that would give them an advantage.
‘We just want to win the next game. As soon as you start thinking too far ahead, you slip up, so everything is about respecting Alloa.’
Celtic go into the match after losing their 100per-cent Scottish Premiership record with a 2-2 draw in Inverness.
Rodgers’ men have now conceded seven goals in five league games and are yet to record a clean sheet in the Premiership.
Davies concedes that Celtic need to learn how to grind out occasional ‘boring’ victories, especially when faced with a goalkeeper on the kind of form that Owain Fon Williams showed in the Highlands. ‘We want to be a team — and we will be that team — that can win by one goal,’ said Davies, who confirmed that injured striker Leigh Griffiths is still out and could miss Saturday’s visit of Kilmarnock to Celtic Park. ‘If the opposition goalkeeper is having a special day, you’ve got to be a team that can win by a goal. ‘The frustrating thing on Sunday was that Inverness had two touches in our box in the second half, one of which was a goal. It came from a second phase from a corner and that’s a little organisational thing we need to be aware of. ‘But defending is not just the responsibility of the defenders. It’s the whole team. We defend from the front with a high press, so it’s a collective responsibility. ‘We want to be a team that gives nothing away. That’s really important to us.
‘But we’ve scored a lot of goals and been very creative. Our goal difference is +10. I was looking around at other leagues and Man City are +11. So that’s a marker of sorts.
‘Yet we need to be able to see out games and get clean sheets.
‘The bottom line at Celtic is it’s about winning games and trophies. That will never change.
‘It’s important for us to try to win in a certain way but, given the choice of an entertaining game that we don’t win or a boring game where you grind out a 1-0 win, then we’d always take the latter.
‘That’s what leads you to success and trophies. But it’s about finding the balance. We are a team that is open and attacking. You don’t score five goals against Rangers if you’re not committed to getting bodies forward.
‘But if we are organised a little bit better then we will close those spaces and be able to defend better.’
Davies also offered a defence of keeper Dorus de Vries, who was criticised for his performances against Barcelona and Caley Thistle. But he conceded the Dutchman must show top form or risk losing his place to the ousted Craig Gordon.
‘Dorus was player of the season last year at Nottingham Forest and we’ve worked with him before at Swansea and had success,’ said Davies. ‘He is a very experienced goalkeeper and a switched-on guy. He knows that, just like every player, you’ve got to go out and perform — and he’s made some excellent saves and really good performances.
‘Now we’ve got two goalkeepers fighting for one position and Craig’s attitude has been fantastic since he came out of the team. We are all in this together and we support each other.’