Brendan Rodgers insists he won’t become Celtic’s Tinkerman after his fringe men were given a heck of a fright by Falkirk.
The Hoops boss carried the can for sending out a shadow side that struggled for an hour against John McGlynn’s Championship hopefuls in the Premier Sports Cup. Rodgers made EIGHT changes to his side that bashed Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League in midweek and needed sub Nicholas Kuhn to inspire a late blitz to eventually get the better of the Bairns.
The German teed up Adam Idah for a double before adding two of his own as Celts came from 2-1 down to win 5-2 and set up a Hampden semi showdown with Aberdeen on the weekend of November 2/3. Rodgers will need to rotate as his side fight on several fronts but he insisted there were valuable lessons to come from the Falkirk fight.
The Hoops boss said: “Yes, absolutely. That’s the most changes I’ll ever make. Normally, I would make one change per line, the back line or a triangle in midfield, one change there or in the front line. If you look at my history as a coach, you’ll see that I wouldn’t normally make so many, but that’s the risk that you take. I’m happy to take that risk.
“It was a little bit disconnected for the first 60 minutes – and that’s on me, it’s not on the players. I wanted to get some players in and play in the stadium, get in their first minutes of the season, playing with the team.
“In some moments, we looked good, and in other moments, there was just that little bit of hesitancy. That comes from just not playing so much. But we knew we always had the bench to pull on if we needed it, especially in that last 30 minutes where Falkirk put so much into the game, and then the energy can maybe just start to get sucked a wee bit.”
Rodgers saluted the Falkirk display – and admitted the Bairns had given Celts their toughest test this season. He said: “Yes, I said that to John afterwards. John and his staff clearly have that mindset to play attacking, aggressive football, and you see the rewards of that.
“The confidence that they have is really, really high. And they came here to play with no fear, which was fantastic. I’m pretty sure Falkirk will be back in the Scottish Premiership again.”
Rodgers was thrilled with the impact made by Kuhn from the bench and he said: “Man of the match in 30 minutes, it’s quite nice, isn’t it? So, it was fantastic when Nicolas came into the game. He’s developing into a really, really good player, being effective, which is what you want with him, without the ball.”
It was a tougher day for rusty Auston Trusty and Alex Valle, who was outmuscled for the two Bairns goals. Cameron Carter-Vickers is managing a foot injury while Alistair Johnston should return to face St Johnstone this weekend.
Rodgers said: “It’s a crash course in British football, isn’t it? You might get that free-kick in Spain, but you certainly won’t get it in Britain. He’ll learn that, and he’s a good kid. He’s only young.
“He’s settled in really, really well into the city, into the club, and he’s there for us when he’s needed. I think they’re coming into a complex system, and that’s why I didn’t throw them in straight away – they’d hardly had any training for a little bit of time. But now they’re up to speed a little bit.
“They understand how we want it to work, how we play, the movement patterns. I thought it was a good game to introduce them into.”
Celtic set up a crack at unbeaten Aberdeen in the last four and Rodgers added: “It’s always important just to get there. Clearly, Aberdeen have started the season really, really well in terms of results. I haven’t seen them so much in terms of performance and how they do actually play and shape up, but we’ll do that nearer the time.
“We’ll play them just after the international break, and then we’ll play them again in the Cup. So, yes, I think when you get to the semi-final stage and the finals, good teams, you’ve got to do your work, and we’ll look forward to that when it comes.”