Celtic’s Champions League Hunger Has Survived Barcelona Mauling Says Bhoys Midfielder

BRENDAN RODGERS admits he never used to give the Champions League qualifiers a second thought as he sunned himself on summer holidays.

“It’s Celtic, a huge club, they need to do a lot better and even when they qualified for this group the celebrations were way over the top”.

“Rangers had won the title by 21 points the season before, but Martin had a charisma and a presence that changed everything in an instant”.

” Barcelona beat Real Madrid 5-0, as well as other teams, so it doesn’t guarantee you anything”.

Celtic will take on Inverness Caledonian Thistle away from home in the Scottish Premiership on Sunday. They are a really good team, a Bundesliga team and I watched them play earlier this year but City are on a high. He wasn’t up to managing a club of Celtic’s stature.

Roy Keane says that the mindset at Celtic must change if the club have ambitions of doing well in Europe.

The Parkhead boss shrugged off the comments made by the former Manchester United captain, who of course finished his career at Celtic, following the heavy defeat in Barcelona in the Champions League.

“The Celtic manager can take most of the credit for making this happen”.

“I am not talking Premier League top end – we are talking about a country here that has to fight for the right to be in qualification”. They scraped through and didn’t win any of the away games.

But Argentinian worldwide defender Zabaleta is no paying no attention to the manner of the Hoops’ Nou Camp capitulation, and insists a trip to a 60,000-capacity Celtic Park is a daunting prospect for any side. That is all we have ever tried to be with each other and that is what I will always be with the players. We’ll see a different side up here on Sunday.

The 20-year-old Frenchman experienced differing fortunes on Tuesday night, though, as he missed a penalty in the Hoops’ 7-0 thumping at Barcelona.

Despite such a convincing defeat for the Bundesliga outfit, Venegoor of Hesselink believes Celtic have got a job to finish third in the section and qualify for the Europa League.

“We respect Inverness had a hard start but within their last couple of games they showed up much better”.

“People say this is a tough game for us but every game is tough”.