BRENDAN Rodgers last night praised the mental toughness of his players as they responded to the loss of their invincible domestic record with victory against Partick Thistle – as Alan Archibald insisted his midfielder Gary Fraser didn’t mean to take his frustration out on the Parkhead side’s fans.
After a flat first half, Celtic were two goals up and coasting through Stuart Armstrong and Kieran Tierney in the dying stages when midfielder Fraser struck the ball full force into supporters sitting only metres away.
Archibald insisted the player, still annoyed at not starting the match, had merely been intending to smash the ball into the hoardings. While the incident enraged both fans and certain Celtic players, Fraser attempted to apologise as he left the field.
“He didn’t mean it,” said Archibald. “He tries to hit the boards out of frustration. He’s frustrated he didn’t start the game, then he’s taken a bad touch. I don’t think there was any malice in it, he’s not that type of lad. We’ll deal with it. He’s not done it deliberately and he’s tried to apologise there at the end. Nobody in their right mind would try to do that from so close, especially the way he strikes the ball.”
“I would have to give the benefit of the doubt to the player because I would sincerely hope he wouldn’t be smashing a ball into a crowd on purpose,” was Rodgers' take on it. “You’d like to think he didn’t mean it. It’s a respect element as well. If you are that close to supporters who are paying money to go and watch a game, you shouldn’t be doing things like that. There’s maybe frustration because he is not playing or losing a game, but you don’t do that."
Rodgers said his side's response to the 4-0 defeat at Tynecastle was a “mark of the team”. “It’s so, so tough for the players,” he said. “You are virtually asked to play back to back seasons. It’s incredible the energy they have to put in. I said to them before the game that you define yourself as a team whenever you have disappointment and what your reaction is to it and I thought the players reacted well. It was always going to be tricky. We had to be patient. Alan sets his teams up well and organised. There wasn’t going to space and we needed that bit of magic from Stuart.”
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