John McGlynn reckons his Bairns can blast towards promotion after getting the backing of Brendan Rodgers.
The Celtic boss came into the Falkirk dressing room after the 5-2 Premier Sports Cup win to pay tribute to the performance. Rodgers was seriously impressed by McGlynn’s men and the Bairns boss is convinced his side can take confidence for pushing the Parkhead men closer than any other team this season.
He said: “We can take great belief from having come here and played the way we played and made a statement that Celtic had to make four changes around the hour mark to try and turn the game in their favour, which they did. Players individually were playing against really good players here. Can you learn anything individually and then as a team can you learn anything because we play in a similar way.
“I was pleased, I mean big plaudits to Brendan, he came in after the game in our dressing room and complimented our players and so a great thank you for him for doing that, that will help our players as well. We’ll take the belief that we came here and scored two goals against Celtic, nobody else has done that. This will not hurt us mentally.”
Celtic were forced to send on more than £20m of talent when 2-1 down with just 20 minutes to go. McGlynn said: “It speaks volumes for the effort they put in and the way they played, to be in a situation where we are leading Celtic 2-1. We came with a game plan, I think it kind of worked.
“Obviously the other ones that started are not exactly cheap either That was a statement, a back-handed compliment to us. Yeah, fair enough Falkirk, you’ve done well but here’s the big guns coming on, let’s see how you can handle that. And of course, the legs kind of fell off a little bit, little bit of gaps opened up and Nicky Hogarth had to make two or three more saves but you had to expect that to some extent.”
McGlynn – who has been linked with the St Johnstone hot seat – hailed the Falkirk support who packed out the away end at Parkhead and almost witnessed a historic shock. He said: “From 2.15pm to five o’clock they were absolutely amazing. That corner, every single one stayed right until all the players went across. And so huge thank you to the fans. They’ve been great. They’ve been absolutely great.
“They enjoyed what they’d seen. They’ll be a little bit like us, a little bit ‘what if’ but we did well. They will be like me, no criticism of the players at all. It’s a matter of ‘yeah, we enjoyed that, we want a bit more of that’. The hunger should be oozing out of us to return here.”