There’s one thing Brendan Rodgers could do right now which would constitute an even bigger mistake than reaching for the panic button after the disembowelling in Dortmund on Tuesday night.
And that would be if the Celtic manager should choose instead to do nothing at all. Yes, the three points secured on opening night against Slovan Bratislava have already been posted on the board and, because of that thumping win, the target of achieving a place in the play-offs for the last 16 remains a more than realistic possibility.
That was the aim from the start and it remains so this morning, even if the club and its supporters have been forced reluctantly to plant their feet back on the ground. So, no. Now is not the time to curl up into a ball on the back of another monumental hiding. Rather, it’s a moment to pause and to remain focussed on the bigger picture while being prepared to acknowledge that Celtic simply can’t go on suffering like this, whenever they are pushed out there onto the Champions League’s centre stage.
And that Rodgers takes his share of the responsibility for ensuring that these sporadic humiliations are brought to an end. Put it this way, the manager will have to keep his own head out of the clouds the next time he boards a flight to the continent, in a fortnight from now. Call it naivety. Call it over confidence nudging into the realms of arrogance. Call it whatever you wish.
But, for one reason or another, under the Irishman’s watch Scotland’s champions continue to make the same mistake of getting their face kicked in on Europe’s biggest stage and the time has surely now come for Rodgers to find a way of protecting his club from such excruciating dishonour.
It really shouldn’t be all that difficult. A few fundamental dos and don’ts would surely go a long way. Do make sure to stay compact and hard to pass through in the middle of the pitch.
Don’t abandon your posts and leave all defensive duties to fall on the shoulders of Callum McGregor, his two centre backs and the goalkeeper. Remember to match your runners while you’re at it and remain composed when in possession of the football. And, for God’s sake, don’t bend over and allow yourselves to be embarrassed out there.
All of the above should have been the manager’s messaging ahead of kick-off. And, even if it was not, these instructions most certainly ought to have been fed onto the pitch after a chaotic opening period during which Celtic’s last line was swinging open like a barn door allowing the likes of Julian Brandt and Karim Adayemi to burst through at will.
It’s hard to know how much blame to apportion to Rodgers for this latest startling malfunction or how much his players were guilty of failing to manage themselves out there on the pitch. But, even so, one thing is abundantly clear.
This pattern of occasional obliterations now stretches back over both of the manager’s stints in charge and there is very little evidence gathered over the years to suggest that Rodgers has learned how to stop the bleeding when things are getting so horribly out of hand.
In the immediate aftermath of yet another seven goal routing – and that’s the third time it’s happened to one of his sides over his two stints in charge – he certainly didn’t seem to be taking much in the way of personal responsibility for what had just gone on.
Rather he referred time and again to ‘the level’ as if there is nothing any manager can do to prevent carnage unfolding when forced to step up into football’s equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle.
It was a flashback to those nights of abject misery Celtic suffered against Barcelona at the Nou Camp and away to Paris St Germain, albeit with a slightly different twist. Back then Rodgers was regarded by many as some sort of all seeing guru. And at these moments, he seemed more than happy to play up to that role, almost as if it was his mission in life to spread enlightenment and education.
Almost always, he’d bristle at the very mention of a need for greater ‘pragmatism’ as if it was an insult from some disbeliever. On the contrary, he insisted that his players would learn more from playing their own game and stress testing it against the very best than they ever would from attempting to do nothing more than avoid further embarrassment.
And yet the hits just keep on coming. He was already the only manager in the history of the Champions League to see his team ship seven goals in two matches. After Germany, he’s now suffered that same fate three times. Throw in a 5-0 shellacking from PSG in Glasgow and a six goal trouncing at Atletico Madrid last season and it paints a damning picture.
There were precious few positives to be recused from the wreckage of what happened at the Westfalen other than the fact that Liam Scales stuck manfully to the task of putting out fires all around his feet, Auston Trusty tried to live up to his name and Kasper Schmiechel pulled off six or seven saves which prevented Dortmund from racking up a cricket score.
Without the keeper’s repeated interventions it could have turned from a hammering into an on the spot sacking offence for his old Leicester City boss. It’s worth remembering that, across the city, Giovanni van Bronkchorst was reduced to a busted flush as Rangers boss after suffering the same scoreline albeit at home to Liverpool. And that was despite leading his team to a Europa League final in Seville earlier the same year.
Rodgers doesn’t have a tick even remotely like that on his own CV, despite all the spoils and silver harvested from the domestic dominance Celtic have enjoyed with him at the helm. It’s time for him to finally accept that, first and foremost, Celtic must stay out of harm’s way when thrown into the ring with the genuine heavyweights of the European game.
Because, with tolerance levels running low, a repeat performance on foreign soil against Europa League champions Atalanta in Bergamo might translate to one savage beating too many.