Celtic take on Club Brugge tonight in their fifth match of the league phase in the Champions League.
A win for Brendan Rodgers’ men would put them onto a healthy 10 points and all but clinch a spot in the knockout round play-offs in 2025. It would also allow them a better footing to fight for an illustrious top eight spot which rubberstamps progress directytly to the last 16.
“Our objective is to get into the play-off phase, first and foremost, and we’ll have to see what points total that will take us, but for us it really is just focusing on this game and look to bring the performance level.
“The performance level last year, even though we didn’t quite get the results and the wins we would have wanted, certainly indicated to me that we were growing and developing. Now, in three of the four games this season we’ve shown a high level of performance – different types of performances, but certainly the Leipzig game was a culmination of everything that we would want – the physicality, the pressing in the team and the aggression, but also the calmness in our defending.
“As much as you want to dominate, you’re just not going to be able to do it at this level. You’re going to have spells where the opposition who have real quality in their team and who will be very well coached, will make you suffer. And it’s having that ability to suffer.
“I think that was the great thing about the Leipzig game – we suffered, we went behind after making a really good start, so we had to weather a wee bit of a storm for 10 minutes, but then we grew back into the game again and then ran out very convincing winners. But you have to be ready for it, and that’s something we’re developing all the time.”
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