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Rodgers disappointed by Celtic’s defending

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Brendan Rodgers wants his defenders to stop giving away cheap goals.

Partick Thistle and Kilmarnock scored three times against the hoops in their last two matches with the spotlight on the defence tonight against Zenit St Petersburg.

A clean sheet tonight would go a long way towards giving Celtic a chance to get past the Russians but in the Champions League the hoops lost 18 goals in six matches.

That sort of defending would kill off any prospect of a run in the Europa League with Rodgers well aware of where his side’s problems lie.

It’s important for us to defend well,” he told the Daily Record. “That has been the disappointment for us at this level.

If you can take a clean sheet from your home game and go away then you could argue it could be difficult then for the home team in the second leg.

There’s that bit more anxiety, more pressure. We saw it in Rosenborg. We saw it out in Astana. There was a period of 20 minutes where we conceded goals but the minute we got the goal we killed the tie.

Probably sometimes what has deflated the crowd a wee bit is when we’ve made mistakes and given away cheap goals. The idea is to hopefully not do that.”

With Nir Bitton about to undergo knee surgery Rodgers will have to pick between Jozo Simunovic and Jack Hendry to partner Kris Ajer in central defence.

Simunovic was at fault for both goals lost against Partick Thistle while Hendry has only played in one match since signing from Dundee.

Tom Rogic is expected to be on the bench tonight after being out of action for two months.

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