PATRICK ROBERTS has declared he will be fit and ready to face Paris St Germain as he looks to continue to defy Celtic’s ‘haters’.
The Scottish champions face the French giants in just under two weeks’ time knowing anything against their hosts will surely secure continental football after Christmas in the Europa League.
Despite having just one victory to their name - coming in a 3-0 triumph away to Anderlecht - Brendan Rodgers’ side received high praise for the way they competed with Bayern Munich last week in the Champions League. Even though the game at Celtic Park was lost 2-1, Celtic stood up to the likes of Arjen Robben and James Rodriguez in what was an accomplished performance.
Read more: Neil Lennon: English football can make my eyes bleed - the Scottish game is doing just fine
Roberts missed that game out due to a hamstring injury picked up in their match with Kilmarnock, a complaint Rodgers feared would keep him out for up to six weeks. However, the Manchester City loanee revealed yesterday he will be prepared for the challenge of silencing PSG in the Parc des Princes if called upon.
Asked if his Champions League campaign was over for this season, the forward said: “No chance. I had the same thing last year around the same time. I know what to do, I know the procedure. It’s all about getting on with it and getting back to fitness.
“As soon as the international break is finished. Hopefully back by then all going well. We’ll see what the physios say but hopefully I’ll be fine. It would have been hard but there are lots of games during the season. Our objective was to go back into the Champions League and try to finish the best we can and stay in Europe. Hopefully we can do that. Thankfully it’s nothing too serious.”
Roberts appeared eager to get back on the highest stage to show what Celtic can really do. Neil Lennon, the former Celtic manager and now Hibernian manager, spoke out yesterday about derisory comments coming from certain football ‘experts’ and pundits south of the border who have failed to notice any impact made from the top team in Scotland.
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While the efforts against Bayern last week failed to resonate, neither did the significance of smashing their own 100-year British record by going 63 games unbeaten domestically. Tony Cascarino, whose year in Glasgow was a catastrophe, felt appropriate to pass remarks on the achievements of the current crop, claiming they are not a ‘great side’ among other various negative observations.
Rather than take notice of such comments, though, Roberts brushed them off as people paid for an opinion underestimating the Glasgow side, saying it only gives Celtic the desire to make ‘the haters’ dislike them more.
“They are standard, all the comments you get these days are the same. We don’t really focus win them much, we just focus on ourselves and keep making people hate us even more,” he said.
“I just think that’s the opinions of players and we can’t do much about that. We’ve just got keep playing who we’ve got to play against and keep winning and getting results. That’s all we can do.
“It is tough up here, especially fir us as we’re playing against players who want to beat us and stop our run. So they will be giving their all and more to try to beat us but every game, and we’ve had about nine in a moth, we’ve still had the same mentality and go and win and we’ve keep getting results.
Read more: Neil Lennon: English football can make my eyes bleed - the Scottish game is doing just fine
“It’s credit to us what we’re doing here and it’s good to be around.
“They are obviously paid to give their opinions, but we don’t take any notice of it. We just concentrate on our football. It it was easy it wouldn’t have stood for 100 years. That’s how long it stood for but hopefully we can continue it for longer.
“I don’t know about bringing out a DVD, if we keep winning games maybe it will be a series or a boxset.”
Roberts has played a significant part in Celtic’s record run. The 20-year-old scored in the first game of the run - a 7-0 Motherwell mauling - and has scored a further nine times since.
“Obviously the one that started it was a good one, the Motherwell win at the end of the season,” added Roberts.
“I don’t think anyone would have imagined doing this back then. It was the last game of the season, we went out and scored seven and enjoyed ourselves. There was big changes with the manager coming in during the summer. He gave us that belief and we still have it now. Hopefully we’ll keep producing.”
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