Celtic midfielder Stuart Armstrong believes Celtic will be stronger next term for their Champions League experience this season.
The 1-1 draw at Manchester City on Tuesday night meant the Hoops finished with three points, their place at the bottom of Group C already confirmed before they travelled to the Etihad stadium.
Armstrong noted the improvement from the 7-0 defeat by Barcelona in the Nou Camp on match day one - they also drew 3-3 at home with City and 1-1 away to Borussia Monchengladbach - to the well-deserved draw in Manchester, albeit against an under-strength English side.
The former Dundee United player is already looking forward to next season's European opportunities after the Ladbrokes Premiership leaders reached the group stage for the first time in three years.
"It was obviously a dream come true to play Champions League football but once you accomplish that, you want to do well in it," said the 24-year-old.
"We definitely improved and it was an enjoyable occasion last night. Although there wasn't too much up for grabs, a good performance by the team was important.
"We played well in large portions of the game, we kept the ball well, created a lot of opportunities, maybe we could have had a couple more goals and taken all three points.
"But we have been improving the whole time since the campaign began and we are happy with what we produced.
"It is not about proving a point, it is about learning and developing and I think we did that from when we started the campaign to where we are now.
"It gives you a hunger to come back next season again and keep improving and keep on being there."
Craig Gordon has enjoyed Brendan Rodgers' first attempt with the Scottish champions since taking over as boss in the summer.
The Hoops keeper, looking ahead to the trip to Partick Thistle on Friday night, said:
"We want to try to get back there. There is a lot of hard work between now and then to make sure that happens so we get back to working in Scotland and give ourselves the opportunity to try it again next year.
"Since the manager has come in, he has changed a few things and put in place patterns of play to make us better and the confidence to go out and play and make sure we get results.
"The last two away performances have been good draws and hopefully we can take that forward and try to give it an even better go next year, if possible.
"It is on to the next game. We want to continue to play the way we are playing, it is enjoyable to play in.
"We are playing some really good stuff, creating some good chances so if we continue doing that then everyone will be happy."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article