Brendan Rodgers has admitted he shares responsibility for Celtic’s painful Champions League elimination at the hands of Kairat Almaty.
The Hoops entered the competition earlier than in recent seasons, forced into the qualifying knockout stage after slipping in the UEFA coefficient rankings. But their campaign ended at the first hurdle, with two goalless legs against the Kazakh side followed by a penalty shootout defeat.
While much of the criticism has been directed towards the Celtic board for failing to strengthen the squad in time, Rodgers conceded he and his players did not do enough on the pitch.
“Listen, I also accept responsibility because we slipped up at home — the home game,” Rodgers said on Celtic TV. “We’re not getting away from that either. We weren’t good enough at home when we should have won. Then you go to Kazakhstan, and then you’re relying on something there — and the penalties.”
The manager’s comments come amid a turbulent period for Celtic, with fan anger at board level spilling into organised protests and public divisions inside the club. But Rodgers’ admission reflects his determination not to shy away from accountability, even as speculation continues around his future and contract situation.
He could have easily batted that away and directed his anger to the board on Friday, but he sat there and put his hands up and accepted his part, which is fair enough.
Celtic now face the Europa League group stage instead of the Champions League, a significant sporting and financial blow. Rodgers will be under pressure to deliver a response domestically, beginning with Sunday’s trip to Rugby Park to face Kilmarnock.
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3 responses
Absolutely Rodgers fault. If we were knocked out by someone like Salzburg or Porto, you could rightly say it was the failure of the board to bring in players early enough.
However the team we couldn’t put away over two legs should have been easily beaten with the players we had. Remember they were also missing half of their starting 11which makes it even more embarrassing.
We’ve been knocked out by diddy teams in qualifying a number of times in the past but this was a whole new low.
But hey, it’s all good we will just stay away from the Killie game for 12 minutes, that will fix everything. The board will apologise and resign. The Scouting team will move on to scout for Cowdenbeath, Desmond will sell the club to someone that throws cash about, Rodgers will suddenly make decisions in games and fix issues on the fly, Cal Mac will Benjamin Button himself back to his mid 20s. Tierney and Jota will play 90 minutes every game for the rest of the season and we will beat Sevco by 6 goals every time we play them for the rest of the decade. All while we go unbeaten in the Europa league.
I admire Brendan for taking the blame. But what about the team, we had a team on the pitch that should have won, they didn’t look as if they wanted to win some players have come back from holiday and treated the game like a bounce game going through the emotions. I know Brendan picks the team he should be demanding more from them. The board give Brendan the tools to do the job or get to you know where
Dunno Stuart Bucharest managed tae defeat Barcelona oawn penalties and won a ‘big eared cup’.
So anythings probabile? Kalmat may even win a geme or two at home😵😬😆😲.