Brendan Rodgers has stressed the importance of keeping 11 players on the park during Tuesday’s Champions League tie against Lazio.
Celtic need to win in the Italian capital to keep their hopes of European football into the new year alive.
On matchday 1 Gus Lagerbielke and substitute Odin Thiago Holm were sent off in the second half with the hoops hanging on to a 2-0 defeat with nine men on the park for most of the second half.
After two credible home performances Daizen Maeda was sent off in the first half of Matchday 4 away to Atletico Madrid, after the break Celtic conceded four goals to lost 6-0.
James Forrest, a scorer in 2019 against Lazio, wasn’t in the squad for Saturday’s draw with Motherwell but Rodgers confirmed that the winger will play tomorrow night.
The key is making sure we have 11 on the field and when we have shown that in all`of the games we have been good.
That’s the challenge for us and at this level it’s the top end of the field and dealing with that quality collectively.
I’m excited and I’m really looking forward to seeing us play and I think we can get the result we want but we need to work really hard.’
We learned that over the course of the competition against Lazio and the other teams when it’s 11 v 11 we can really compete.
The learning at the end of the game is that you have to be concentrated right until the end. We looked like the team that was going to win and we lost which was a big disappointment.
You also have to be clinical as you won’t get as many opportunities and the quality and experience is what progresses you at this level.
As a club, it’s what we want to do but we know the challenges at this level.
The points tally doesn’t reflect the performance but we have two games and we know what we need to do and we will give it everything to achieve the victories we need.
