Brendan Rodgers insists he is driven by ‘burning’ motivations to reverse Celtic’s current fortunes ahead of tonight’s Europa League clash against Sturm Graz…
After an abysmal 2-0 defeat to Dundee on Sunday, Celtic slipped five points adrift of Hearts at the summit of the Scottish Premiership. The fear for Celtic supporters is that five point gap may widen between the top two when Rodgers’ men visit Tynecastle this weekend.
However, attention turns to this evening’s must-win encounter against the Austrian champions. Given Celtic have accumulated one point from two games in Europe so far, the Hoops badly need their first victory in the competition.
Speaking at yesterday’s media conference to The Celtic Star alongside the mainstream media, Rodgers said: “At this point in time, I can’t be any more motivated to turn it around. It’s okay when you’re winning trophies and playing great football and everything else. The challenge is, and we all have seen the challenges from the summer through to now and the continuation of that.”
Brendan Rodgers added: “I’m so determined to try and turn the feeling around and the feeling on and off the pitch because for me it’s not what Celtic is about or not what Celtic should be about.
“This is an amazing club, and yeah, you will get frustrated at times. We’re only human, and you will get disappointed like you are at the weekend because I can never, with the greatest respect to Dundee, I would never expect a Celtic team to go and lose. That’s what I’ve always felt about here.
“We were talking six months ago about challenging at the latter stages of Champions League and now we’re losing these types of games. So I’m super motivated to do the very best that I can for this club, and that motivation is burning inside to be able to do that.”
Hopefully we witness a very different type of performance from Celtic this evening, one with hunger, aggression, forward intent, speed and 100% commitment for every second of the game, ditching the passing for passing sack monotony that’s counter productive. The Jungle used to chant ‘Get intae them!’ and that’s exactly what’s needed this evening and again on Sunday.
Time to start playing like Celtic, Bhoys!
Here’s Brendan’s media conference..
Conor Spence
Celtic in the Thirties in Two Volumes – Brilliantly researched and written by Matt Corr. An unmissable addition to any Celtic bookshelf. Click on the image below to order your copies…
