Yesterday’s match was barely a contest with Hearts hardly able to muster up the level of aggression that Naismith managed as a player when he put the boot into anything in green and white before inevitably being substituted with his side losing.
Fans often discuss and demand recruitment at their club, over the coming windows Mark Lawwell has to double up on removing players, a first team squad of 25 seems more than adequate, currently Celtic have around 40 players in their first team pool.
An appearance at St Roch’s on the way back from Santa Ponsa hard to pick fault with. On the back of the Daily Record’s Liel Abada fantasy Rodgers took the winger out for dinner to round off his busy Sunday.
Liam Scales was the main focus of this week’s Celtic TV interview although Rodgers also discusses the away ticket allocation at Tynecastle, facing Diego Simeone in the Champions League and dropping in on St Roch’s after starting his Sunday in Mallorca.
Rodgers will have to decide whether he puts Phillips in for just his third match since January or go to Carter-Vickers for his first match since lasting 45 minutes away to Aberdeen on August 13.
With an exciting summer of recruitment coming up driven entirely by Mister Beale success was assured- having Rodgers in place across the city would add to the joy after the pain he inflicted first time around.
When the Champions League squad was published by UEFA there were a number of high value players left out such as Maik Nawrocki and Alexandro Bernabei.
It was a spontaneous reaction but was captured by Sky Sports and a few mobile phones, showing that Rodgers is reconnecting with the Celtic support.
With projects, you’re willing to give them more time. But qualifying from a Champions League group is not something you can wait for to come to you somewhere along the line. It’s an instant demand. You can’t go into the campaign undercooked and hoping that projects just in the door…
One match into a Champions League campaign the ambitions of June and July are in tatters, this Celtic squad isn’t about to advance in Europe, matching last season’s tally of two points is far from certain.