RAISE YOUR GAME! Rodgers urges Celtic team to reach next level in Dortmund … but they’ll have to do it without Carter-Vickers
Brendan Rodgers has challenged Celtic to take their match against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League on Tuesday evening to the next level.
After a run of nine straight wins in all competitions, the Scottish champions face their biggest test of the season so far against last season’s defeated finalists.
But they will enter the 80,000-capacity Signal Iduna Park without Cameron Carter-Vickers after the influential centre-back succumbed to a toe injury.
After a decade without a win in Europe’s elite competition, Celtic have now won the last two – against Slovan Bratislava last month and Feyenoord last December – and Rodgers has urged his players to show they are ready to take on the best teams on the continent.
“For us the idea is to take our game to the next level,” the Celtic boss said.
‘I think the performance we have delivered over the past six or seven months has only increased.
Rodgers admits players will need to take their game against Dortmund to the next level
Celtic are hampered by an injury to top defender Carter-Vickers, who misses
The Scottish champions expect a top performance from record signing Arne Engels
‘Now we have reached this level and we have no illusions. We are playing against a team that is challenging and at the top of elite football.
“Whether it’s at home or whether it’s away in this competition, the point is that we’re going to be a very difficult team to play against – with and without the ball.
‘I’m not looking for perfection, I just want us to be very, very difficult to play against and give everything we have.
‘It’s the second of eight games. Whatever happens after this match, we will come back to the dressing room and I still know that I have a very good team, which still has a lot of progress to make, but what a great test for us.
“I’m very relaxed, but focused on a result that can build on the result of the first game.”
Rodgers gives his thoughts at the Champions League press conference ahead of the tie in Germany
Kasper Schmeichel looks relaxed, despite the big challenge that awaits in Dortmund
Kyogo Furuhashi is seen as one of the biggest threats by Borussia Dortmund
Celtic will have to make do without Carter-Vickers, who missed much of last season’s Champions League campaign due to injury. History is now in danger of repeating itself after the American international failed to travel with the team.
New £5m signing Auston Trusty replaces Saturday’s 6-0 win over St Johnstone and will hold the fort as Carter-Vickers recover.
“Obviously he (Carter Vickers) is a top class player for us,” Rodgers said. ‘He missed a bit of Champions League football in his time.
Unfortunately, he was unable to play five of the twelve matches that the club played. But yes, we have other players.
It’s always an opportunity for someone else to come in and hopefully we can get Cam back sooner rather than later.
‘But we can’t think about it. We will rely on a collective. There is no one player who brings our results and how we have been this season.
Of course he is a very important player. But if we want to get a result tomorrow night, it will be through the collective.
‘This level is as much about heads as it is about skills. We bring that quality that we show domestically and we can bring it to this great arena and play with that confidence. And if we can do that, we can be a very difficult team to play against tomorrow night.”