BRENDAN Rodgers last night praised Partick Thistle player Gary Fraser for being “man enough” to seek him out and apologise for kicking the ball at Celtic fans.
Fraser petulantly booted the ball into the crowd from point-blank range towards the end of the Firhill club’s 2-0 defeat in a Ladbrokes Premiership game at Parkhead on Wednesday night.
The contrite midfielder has since described the incident as “a moment of madness” and contacted the Celtic supporter he struck to invite her and a friend to be his guest at a January match between the two sides.
Rodgers has also revealed that the 24-year-old had waited for him in the foyer of Celtic Park after the game to express his remorse at how he had acted and paid tribute to him for the gesture.
“When I was coming down the stairs after the press conference he (Fraser) was there,” he said. “He actually waited to apologise to me.
“At least he was man enough to do that. I said to him: ‘You can’t be doing that!’ He said: ‘I didn’t mean to do that, I had actually meant to hit the boards’. I said: ‘Well, you have got to work on your shooting then’.”
Rodgers - whose side recovered from their 4-0 defeat at the hands of Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday, their first in 70 domestic matches, with a comfortable victory – admitted he had still not seen the incident.
But the Northern Irishman predicted the former Hamilton and Bolton Wanderers players wouldn’t be so rash in the future.
“I still haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure it’s something he won’t do again,” he said.
“I had no doubt that he would apologise to the Celtic fans and he has done that. But he couldn’t do it straight away so at least he was man enough to come to me as the leader of the team.”
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