Celtic were more or less out of the Europa League after the first leg ended as they suffered a 2-0 loss at home and it was always going to be an uphill task in Spain to get any kind of positive result against a strong Valencia side. Nevertheless, the Hoops put on a decent display and even after playing more than an hour of the game with ten men, they fought bravely and lost only 1-0 in the end.
However, former Celtic legend and England striker Chris Sutton came down hard on Brendan Rodgers’ incompetency to get results in Europe. He was quoted as saying (The Express), “I think that Celtic have plateaued in Europe, if not gone backwards. They are too inconsistent. Europe hasn’t been good enough under Brendan Rodgers – full stop,”
We feel the criticism Rodgers is receiving here is uncalled for and there isn’t much he could have done with the current squad in Europe. There is no doubt about Celtic’s domination in Scotland as the Northern Irish manager took the team to a double treble including a season where they went unbeaten in the domestic league.
As for Europe, the Hoops have had a tough draw in the past two seasons in the Champions League. In the 2016-17 campaign, they were drawn with Barcelona (who were the defending champions that season), Manchester City and Borussia Monchengladbach.
The Scottish Champions managed three points in the group as they secured three draws. Twice with Manchester City including a 3-3 thriller at Celtic Park and one against their German opponents. One cannot really criticise the Hoops for not making out of this group as City and Barcelona had just too much firepower.
In the 2017-18 season, Celtic drew with the likes of Paris Saint Germain, Bayern Munich and Anderlecht. The expected results happened against the French and German giants as the Bhoys lost both the legs. Celtic managed to win an away tie against Anderlecht but lost at home narrowly. Once again they finished with three points, and we cannot criticise them for not being able to compete with the likes of Bayern Munich and PSG given the squad those two sides had.
Rodgers’ biggest goof up with Celtic happened this season as they failed to qualify for the Champions League. However, they managed to progress out of their tough Europa League group. They were up against RB Leipzig who were last season’s quarterfinalists in the Europa League and RB Salzburg who had reached the semifinals last season of the same competition.
Celtic needed some help from Rosenborg, but they managed to make it out of a tight group and were handed a draw against Valencia who were coming into the round of 32 after finishing third in their Champions League group. The home performance against Valencia was flat, but Sutton’s claim of Celtic going backwards under Rodgers in Europe is patently untrue if one tries to analyse the squads and quality he came up against in the last three seasons. We think Sutton would be better off looking at the facts before running his mouth off.
