Saidy Janko and Mikael Lustig are in the Celtic side to face Hapoel Beer Sheva tonight with Eoghan O’Connell dropping out.
There was speculation that O’Connell may drop out with Erik Sviachenko coming in but the move to put Lustig in central defence has come as a surprise.
Further forward Nir Bitton replaces Tom Rogic in the stating XI with Scott Sinclair, Leigh Griffiths and James Forrest carrying the attacking threat..
Comparing tonight’s match with the ties against Maribor and Malmo Rodgers said: “A lot has been said about what has happened in the past but you have to embrace failure. That’s how you succeed. If you run away from it and be frightened of it then you’re never going to succeed.
“If you trace or track any teams, coaches or players and look at the things they have won or the success they’ve had, if you look below that you’ll see failures as well so you have to embrace it and work even harder to achieve what it is you want to achieve.
“What I have seen in the players since day one is a real focus and mentality. I’ve loved every minute of working with them because they’ve embraced everything that we want to do. It’s still very early and we still have loads of sessions to do, lots of practice on the training field but I couldn’t have asked any more of them.
“What they have given me has been extraordinary really and now we’ve put ourselves in a wonderful position to achieve a great goal and let’s hope we can do it.”
CELTIC: Gordon; Janko, Lustig, Toure, Tierney; Brown, Bitton, McGregor; Forrest, Griffiths, Sinclair
SUBS: De Vries, Izaguirre, Dembele, Armstrong, Rogic, Roberts, Sviatchenko
Hapoel Beer-Sheva: Goresh, Bitton, Tzedek, Vìtor, Davidzada; Radi, Hoban, Ogu; Melikson, Nwakaeme, Lúcio Maranhão
