Strachan spells out how Rodgers can deliver success in Europe

Gordon Strachan has admitted that fear of defeat inspired his Champions League heroics as Celtic manager.

During four seasons in charge of Celtic he twice steered the hoops into the last 16 of the competition leaving behind some incredible memories.

Beating Manchester United and AC Milan in successive seasons is quite an achievement with the hoops taking full points from their home matches in successive seasons.

Celtic Park was genuinely a fortress with Strachan harnessing a side where the defence regularly consisted of Paul Telfer, Gary Caldwell, Stephen McManus and Lee Naylor into an unbeatable unit. Having Artur Boruc in goals was a decided advantage.

In recent seasons Brendan Rodgers and Ange Postecoglou have taken a more expansive approach into the Champions League and suffered the consequences.

Rodgers is back at Celtic for another crack at the elite competition with Strachan telling Genting Casino what the ‘new’ boss will be aiming for in Europe:

He will be looking at improving results in the Champions League. Every manager that competes in the Champions League wants to do well.

Ange wasn’t that successful in Europe, but he beat Rangers regularly and won a lot of domestic trophies, which was acceptable to the fans.

There were periods where Ange’s team’s played fantastically well in Europe, they had some great moments against Real Madrid and scored a lot of goals in the group stage.

When the season finished, and there were three trophies in the cabinet, no Celtic fans were thinking about not getting out of the Champions League group stage. I appreciate that if the club wants to be taken really seriously, then success in the Champions League would certainly help with that.

I think success for Celtic is getting out of the group stage of the Champions League, that would be a phenomenal achievement when you consider the standard that they are coming up against.

Brendan will be looking at the last time he managed Celtic in Europe. There were games where Celtic conceded quite a few goals, but that is where Brendan and Ange deserve credit because they always want to play football in their own style.

That is something that I couldn’t have done as a manager. I’d be too worried about getting beat! I think Brendan will have a plan for the league and a plan for Europe.

During his first spell at Celtic Rodgers did well away from home with draws against Manchester City and Borussia Monchengladbach as well as a thrilling 3-0 win away to Anderlecht.

Older and wiser he won’t want to repeat the hammerings from Barcelona and PSG when the group stage action resumes in September.