Yahoo News Brendan Rodgers slaps down Celtic Champions League narrative as bullish boss bins record people 'cry about'
Bullish Brendan Rodgers insists the "narrative" around Slovan Bratislava does not make Celtic's Champions League opener any easier.
And he insists Celtic deserved more from their last Champions League campaign as the boss came out swinging before the first game of the revamped league phase on Wednesday. The Scottish Premiership kings go into the clash against the Slovakian champions as heavy favourites - with Vladimir Weiss' men the lowest-ranked side in the 36-team format having navigated the play-off rounds to join Europe's elite.
But speaking ahead of the Hoops' first game of the new-look competition Rodgers was keen to stress the danger the visitors pose. Quizzed if going into the opener as favourites changed the mindset for Celtic, he responded: "Not really. I think it's normal. We come into every game and respect the opponent. Obviously there will be a narrative around this game, which I totally get, but I look at Bratislava and they have had four ties and eight games to get to this stage. So they have put in a massive amount of work and fight to reach this level."
He was then put on the spot about the learning curve from last season's group stage campaign - which saw the club earn just one win and four points before crashing out of Europe. Rodgers fired back: "You look at the nuts and bolts of it, people will say you only got four points and then they will cry about that, and the season before and the season before.... I look at it that last year was (down to) decisive moments. Apart from the game away in Madrid where we lost a man early on and got punished by a team that got to the quarter-final. I thought in the other games showed up well in.
"We could have won the Lazio game, and should never have lost it. Feyenoord at home we were good and won the game. Away to Feyenoord we were good and right in it, then we concede and lost two men and that's the challenge. For me looking at it I thought if we can strengthen the squad we can take another step closer, and we did that."
