BRENDAN Rodgers will urge his Celtic players to go on the offensive in their Champions League meeting with Bayern Munich tonight despite being without first-choice centre half Jozo Simunovic.
The Scottish champions’ hopes of getting a result in the 75,000-capacity Allianz Arena were dealt a huge blow before they jetted out of Glasgow yesterday afternoon when Simunovic was ruled out with a hamstring strain.
However, Rodgers insisted: “We have a duty to play our game. Our disappointment against Barcelona away and PSG at home was that we didn’t quite impose our way of working. So our message is we have a duty to play how we play – and that is to attack and be aggressive.
“They can still go out and impose their game. We have done that in European games and this is a great opportunity for us again to show that we have that nerve to play. That would be the idea going into it.”
Rodgers is set to move Mikael Lustig from right back to centre half and hand Cristian Gamboa a start – even though the Costa Rica internationalist has only played in three games this season.
However, the Northern Irishman believes the Parkhead club must take the game to their feted rivals in the Allianz Arena in order to avoid the sort of humiliating defeats they suffered in this competition to Paris Saint-Germain last month and Barcelona last season
Rodgers added: “I think the beauty of this team is that we rise to the challenge. Each game we go into, we try and put on a positive performance and see what we get from that.
“For me, looking to perform tomorrow is important. We may or may not have as much of the ball as normal, but we can certainly be a threat.
“Now that we are building this level of mobility and speed and technique, this is another great experience for us to go and develop yet again.”
Asked if the pressure was off Celtic because of the quality of their rivals, Rodgers said: “You never really take that approach. You go into every single game you play believing you can win, that you can get something.
‘We go into every game believing we can get result and tomorrow night will be no different. We know the challenge. We know the change of mentality in their team and their world class players. But we want to fight to get a result. That’s what we will try and do.”
Read more: Stewart Fisher: Why can't Brendan Rodgers manage Scotland as well as Celtic?
Rodgers moved Lustig to centre half handed youngster Anthony Ralston a start at right back in the game against Paris Saint-Germain last month and has also played Nir Bitton at centre half this season.
But he suggested that Gamboa, who played his first club game of the season in the 1-0 win over Dundee on Saturday, could be given the nod.
“He knows I trust him,” he said. “He went away with his international and got a bit of game-time and I thought he was very good against Dundee. He’s available.”
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