Here’s how the Celtic manager reacted to a bruising defeat away at Hearts in the Premiership.
Brendan Rodgers admitted two senior stars will miss next week’s semi-final with Rangers, after Hearts inflicted a 3-1 defeat on his Celtic side.
The Hoops came into the game struggling for domestic form and under fire at the top amid a lack of transfer activity, with Hearts five points clear. That gap is now eight after a Dane Murray own goal, Alexandros Kyziridis blast and Lawrence Shankland penalty cancelled out Callum McGregor’s first half leveller.
It has left Celtic with plenty of work to do in terms of clawing back to a place they have often occupied in Scotland, but they’ll have to do it with an injured squad. Daizen Maeda, Jota, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Alistair Johnston and Kelechi Iheanacho all missed this game.
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Brendan Rodgers reaction to Hearts 3-1 Celtic
The Irishman faced up the media at full-time, with Falkirk up next before a Premier Sports Cup semi final against Rangers a week on Sunday. Iheanacho and Johnston will not make that game as they will be ruled out for a few weeks more, even if the injuries themselves aren’t as serious as feared.
Rodgers commented: “Daizen will join training on Monday. Ali and Kels are probably not as serious as we first thought but I'm not sure they'll make Wednesday. They'll definitely be a few weeks. We have to look at that, we have to make sure that we introduce him (Maeda) at the right moment but thankfully he's back training.”
Despite the injuries, Manchester City loanee Jahmai Simpson-Pusey did not even make the bench in this one, as inexperienced Murray came in at centre-back. The Celtic boss was asked about the Man City defender’s involvement potential this next week despite mystery surrounding his lack of matches.
Why has Manchester City loanee not played more for Celtic?
Rodgers responded after the direct query: “We've got so many games. So I'm sure all the players at some point will feature. We look at all the players and find what we think is the right balance.”
On the game, Rodgers said: “Disappointing result and performance overall. Two different styles of play, two teams not creating so much. Still felt at half-time we had the chance to go in at 2-1. We didn't quite make that and then we're disappointed with the two early goals in the second half. We've got to squeeze the line. That's the principle of our game, we can catch two or three players offside, but we didn't move. It becomes a fight and then we need to show more determination for the shot.
“We speak beforehand about the winger that comes in. He likes to shoot, we see his goal against Falkirk. We did that well in the first half but in the second half we switched off that, so when he came in we got more determination to stop that. The penalty is then, obviously, something we can avoid. Then all of a sudden we're chasing the game. Just lacking that bit of quality and creativity in the final third. In a game where we should take something from, we didn't play well enough and made some basic mistakes to lose the game.”
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