Steve Clarke, the impressive Kilmarnock manager, responded to Brendan Rodgers’ post match comments after Wednesday’s scoreless draw between their sides at Celtic Park. The little joke Brendan made that suggested Celtic would have also struggled to break down a team of firemen sitting as deep as Killie did in this borefest.
“If you look at the majority of what Brendan said, it was correct and proper – but that line wasn’t really befitting of a Celtic manager,” Clarke said today.
“It wasn’t so much disrespectful, it was just a silly line to use in what was quite an honest post-match analysis of the game.
“We don’t have to go there and play the way Celtic want us to. We went there to play the way that is best for us to get a result.
“It’s my job as a manager to set my players up in a way that gives us the best chance of getting a positive result and that’s what we did.
“If you are the team with 73 per cent of the possession then it’s what you do with it that counts and on the night Celtic didn’t do enough. They only had one shot on target, which for that amount of possession I’d think would be disappointing for Brendan and his team.
“If he wants to insinuate that Celtic could not have broken down 11 amateur players, which is what he was insinuating, then I think he underestimates his own abilities as a coach and the ability of his players because I’m pretty sure Celtic would beat 11 firemen.
“I didn’t see Brendan after the game, we didn’t have the usual post-match chat so I don’t know if he was frustrated or not after the results we’ve had against them this year.
“I don’t think he should be too frustrated seeing as they have two trophies in the bag already and the chance to make it three next week.”
