Everything that Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers said to the media after the 0-0 Scottish Premiership draw with Hibernian...
What was your take on that game?
I didn’t think we played with the tempo and the speed that we wanted to until the last 20-odd minutes. We dominated long spells in the game but the first 60 minutes was too slow, from our perspective. We didn’t get them running quickly enough. Then obviously we made the changes and in the last 25 minutes the tempo increased and we pushed them back. We connected the game much better then. We had about 20 attempts on goal, Jamesy (Forrest) hit the crossbar and they made some really good blocks. We just weren’t able to make the breakthrough.
Why such a slow start?
It wasn’t so much a slow start, it was just the speed of our game. We actually dominated the ball and we were able to play through the lines. But we played too many longer passes. We wanted to be playing shorter quicker passes which is a bit more difficult to defend. Too many times we went for a longer pass when we didn’t have to but I’m not going to be too critical of the players. After 10 games you’re judging your team. We’ve won eight and drawn two. We’ve been to virtually every tough away ground in this country. So we couldn’t get the win, we wanted to win. But we just take our point and move on to the next one.
Did the exertions from midweek affect things?
It could well be. But I never wanted to use that as an excuse. Listen, the players had a massive effort midweek but we have to be able to go again, especially with a short rest period.
Did Alistair Johnston suffer a concussion?
It wasn’t a concussion. He felt a bit funny but he’ll be okay. I spoke to him afterwards and the medical team. We didn’t want to take any risk with it, so we took him off and put Tony on.
There were some positive performances from the substitutes what did you make of Mikey Johnston's contribution?
He was a wee bit hit-and-miss. A bit loose, a bit sloppy and then did some good things but he’s been out for a while. Jamesy coming in gives us that quality when he has the ball and can look after the ball for us. Obviously, he can maybe score but the guys who came on, it’s what we asked of them. We knew we were going to make changes after 60, 65 minutes. I asked them to bring energy to the game and I think they did that.
Celtic have had a tough start to the season, haven't they?
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It’s been a difficult start for us in the league but we’ve come through it well. Today just wasn’t our day in terms of how we wanted the game to look. You have to give Hibs credit, they defended well in numbers. You have to respect that. We’ve won eight games and drawn two. The squad is getting better and we’ll get players back. It’s still early but after 10 games I’m pretty pleased.
Would you have liked to have made more changes?
We’re all captains of hindsight after the event. It would have been ideal to have an extra day’s recovery and play later. The boys are fit and strong. It was just our speed of play today. We had the ball but we didn’t move it quickly enough. We played lots of diagonal balls in behind which is OK but we had to play shorter.
Did Daizen Maeda have a contact lens issue?
He was going to come off anyway but he had a wee issue with his contact lens. We thought whilst he was mucking about with it we might as well take him off.
Are you happy with the bench?
Over time every coach or manager would like to strengthen their squad. We’ve got what we’ve got and over time the players have shown their qualities in this opening period of the season. We’re not entitled to win every game we want to. Today we didn’t manage it. It’s not a day to point the finger at the bench or anyone else. The squad will get stronger hopefully in the time I’m here but today we just didn’t do enough.
Will you make changes for Wednesday?
We’ll see. We’ll look and see how they recover before bringing them in. It’s not a league where you can always make wholesale changes and think you can win games. They’re all tough so it has to be strategic without upsetting the flow of the team.
What was your view on Paulo Bernardo?
He looked a little bit leggy in the game today. But this intensity is new for him. He has to get through it. He did well in the week coming into such a high-level game. He worked hard and did well today but the plan was always to give him an hour and take it from there.
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