THE post-match comments from Brendan Rodgers after Celtic’s draw with FK Suduva on Thursday night should have alarm bells ringing among the club’s supporters. I’ve never heard him so low.

I could hardly believe some of the things he was saying. ‘I can only work with what I’ve got’ was the most damning line for me, and if that was my manager saying that about me as a player – particularly if I had just been part of a team that has delivered back-to-back trebles – then I would be a bit put out by that.

In the last couple of seasons, the one thing you could set your watch by in a Rodgers interview was that he would always defend his players. Always. He was never critical of them in front of the cameras or the media, but suddenly he has felt the need to do give them a bit of stick.

He had a pop at their defending, which has been indefensible in all fairness, and said they are losing too many soft goals. The goal the other night was a case in point; what a mess they made of defending a simple cross ball yet again.

The summer campaign he has been waging had to that point been focused on the Celtic board, dropping grenades into the press looking for a reaction. Now, he is aiming both barrels at the players themselves, and time will tell if it sparks something out of them.

It certainly hasn’t worked so far in terms of the board, with the defensive issues remaining unaddressed with a week of the transfer window to go.

The opposition during the week were distinctly below average at European level, and Celtic will be disappointed that they didn’t put the tie to bed over in Lithuania. The problems they faced even against that level of opponent though are the same ones that I and many others have been highlighting for weeks now, and the issues at the back are now starting to seep their way through the rest of the team and are causing a lack of confidence in almost every department.

The longer there is this impasse between what Rodgers wants and what the board are willing to deliver, then the longer the harmony that has marked these last two years at the club will remain absent, and the more other teams will be licking their lips at the prospect of giving the champions a bloody nose.

The wind of change that has breezed through the other side of the city hasn’t helped. Rangers didn’t play all that well against FC Ufa in my book, but they are showing that they can grind out results and they certainly aren’t going to roll over like they did so often last season.

I have already made clear that I think Celtic will win the league, but the complacency they have shown in freshening up their squad when they must have known there was a chance Rangers would improve dramatically has been startling.

Put it this way, can anyone see Rangers losing seven home games this season? There is no way the Ibrox side will be as generous as they were in the past in terms of throwing points away.

Rangers have played 10 games, they have six clean sheets and five of those have come in Europe. That is unbelievable considering where they were defensively when Steven Gerrard came in. They have changed personnel at times, but they have still managed to keep it so tight.

Under Mark Warburton and Pedro Caixinha, the full-backs would just bomb on and leave the centre-backs completely exposed. Now, if James Tavernier goes, then Jon Flanagan tucks in to make a three, and they also have the shields of Lassana Coulibaly and Ryan Jack who will fill in when necessary. They are a side who knows how to fill holes even when they are going forward, and that’s something that has been missing.

So, for Celtic to retain the title, it isn’t going to be as easy as just showing up and going through the motions again. They got away with that at times last season, but they won’t this season, and they have to shake the complacency that has set in from the boardroom down.

There almost seems to have been a feeling that because they have swept all before them since Rodgers arrived that they would do so again this season without evolving and investing in the squad, but that is what all the best teams do. It’s how they stay at the top, by having that freshness and the competition.

Celtic need a couple of big names to shake them out of this slump that has set in. It is still so early in the season, and it’s not panic stations yet, but it’s important that they do address this first little wobble in the Rodgers reign.

A week is a long time in football, so as we approach the Old Firm game, Celtic may be sitting with some new arrivals and they might be feeling a lot better about themselves.

I think both teams will win this weekend and then go onto get through to the Europa League group stages. Hopefully that transpires, and we will all be licking our lips at what is to come next Sunday.