I won’t excuse stinker

Brendan Rodgers insisted injuries and a lack of fans were no excuse for Celtic’s Ibrox horror show.

Despite missing three starters and having their support cut from 7500 to 750 inside Ibrox, the Hoops boss refused to use any of it as a getout clause for one of the worst shows of his two and a half year tenure.

Rodgers is confident Celtic will come back stronger for the harsh experience of defeat.

He said: “Having more supporters there makes the game better but that doesn’t make you pass the bal l straight out the pitch under no pressure.

“Rangers deserved to

win. We didn’t play well and we made too many unforced mistakes. We had to make a couple of changes early on, which interrupts a wee bit what we want to do later on but I have no real excuses. “We’ve got players missing but on the day Rangers were better than us – 13th time unlucky, unfortunately. We just didn’t have a good game. “You have to be humble when you win but also honest when you lose and the honest answer is they were better than us today. We have to accept that.” Rodgers was without Tom Rogic and was forced to leave Odsonne Edouard and Kieran Tierney on the bench due to fitness concerns. That meant a reshuffle to left back for Callum McGregor while Fi lip Benkovic and Mikael Lustig went off injured. Rodgers said: “You lose two defenders and it limits you. Of course today hurts, it always does. Some of the players haven’t experienced that, they’ll be better for it. “It just doe sn’ t change anything we didn’ t know before the game.”