BRENDAN Rodgers is adamant that Celtic can get the result they need in Greece next week to progress to the play-off round of Champions League qualification after they drew 1-1 with AEK Athens last night.
Callum McGregor had given Celtic an early lead, but they were forced to settle for a draw on their own patch after Victor Klonaridis took advantage of slack defending to level the tie just before half-time. But the Celtic manager believes that his side have the quality to go to Athens and score to get into the next round, just as they did against Rosenborg at this stage last season.
“Overall we are still in a really good position,” said Rodgers. “It was always going to be difficult game for us over there but after tonight and seeing how we played, it gives us great hope of going out there to get a result.
“We’ll see. I think everyone was thinking the same thing at this stage last year, going out to Rosenborg and wondering if we could get a result knowing it was going to be tough out there.
“But we went there and produced a really good performance and won the game. I don’t see any reason why we can’t do that again here.
“We respect that they are a good side, but we also showed tonight that we can play well, dominate the game and create chances.
“We’ll need to put in a big performance of course, but I have great confidence in the players to do that.
“We will have enough of the ball to think that we have the players of quality that can score.
“Of course, we are going to have to defend well too. It was always going to be a difficult game whether we were 1-0 up or at 1-1.
“I always felt we would have to go over there and score anyway, so it is very much still in the balance.
“It swings a bit to them because they’re at home, but we certainly know we have the quality to go and perform after seeing that this evening.”
Rodgers was upbeat about his side’s performance, despite failing to break down the visiting defence after Konstantinos Galanopolous was ordered off with over half an hour still to play.
And he hopes that his men can cut out the defensive mistakes that cost them so dear in the home leg last night.
“Apart from that one error that we made just before half time, if we were sat here at 1-0, I would be talking about a fantastic performance,” he said.
“I’m still very proud of how we played. I thought we started the game so well in every element, our shape, offensively when we had the ball, and our defending and pressing was at a really high level. We were in good control of the game and Athens were probably waiting and waiting to get to half time and regroup but obviously we conceded in the 44th minute.
“The game didn’t change much in the second half, whether it was ten men or 11 men. They set off on a deep block. The only frustration was we couldn’t quite make that final pass count in that final third of the pitch.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel