Soccer Football - Pre Season Friendly - Celtic v Wolverhampton Wanderers - Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Republic of Ireland - July 29, 2023 Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers before the match REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Brendan Rodgers has admitted that he is bored by plastic pitches.
At one stage there were three artificial surfaces on the top flight but Hamilton Accies have dropped down to League One.
Next season Kilmarnock will be back on grass while Livingston won’t be missed if they are relegated even though they do hand over a great ticket allocation to away supporters.
Celtic have already been to Livingston and Kilmarnock this season, on Sunday it is a return trip to the plastic of Rugby Park with Rodgers keen to shut down discussion about their dodgy surface.
The Daily Record reports the Celtic boss saying:
I am bored talking about it, to be honest. It bores the life out of me talking about plastic pitches.
We weren’t good enough last time but hopefully we can be this time. In terms of the football aspect, the structure of the team is much better now.
If Kilmarnock can finish in the top six this season Celtic will face at least one more trip to Rugby Park this season, the more immediate concern is improving on August’s performance in the League Cup.
Last season Celtic scored nine times in two visits to Kilmarnock, whether he likes it or not Rodgers knows that his side is being compared to the high standards set by Ange Postecoglou.
We don’t let teams get promoted if their ground isn’t up to spec, so there should be bench marks for the playing surface. They should be grass only.
It would be great if there was an artificial playing surface that would suit the game and the players and require minimal maintenance and watering. But….
The NFL has a lot of artificial pitches and I had hoped the turf used at Dallas Cowboys stadium would be useful for our code.
Unfortunately Australia and Mexico played at that stadium recently and it was a definitely not suitable for a game that relies on the ball bouncing on the surface.
The ACL damage rate to NFL players that play on turf vs grass also puts to bed the idea that an artificial pitch can be suited to our game.
Ye answered yer own question….if Celtic are good enough they will win., irrespective of surface ,refs, VAR etc. …like under Postecoglou, ( Stein, Mc Neil, Hay etc,) Spend some money on quality selected by the “football manager”, not the nepotism of Liewell’s son !!!!