Brendan Rodgers has explained exactly where he feels his Celtic side went wrong for Lazio’s late winner.
It was the cruelest of endings for the Hoops in a game that we had dominated for large spells. When Luis Palma fired into the net with ten minutes to go, it seemed like we were on for a famous European result.
However, once that was ruled out and Pedro headed in a late goal, the feeling was very different. It was another night of what could have been for Celtic against Europe’s elite.
There was fear around Celtic Park the minute Cameron Carter-Vickers turned inside and was dispossessed. Lazio pounced with Matteo Guendouzi sending in a nice cross for former Barca star Pedro to nod past Joe Hart.
Rodgers was asked about the incident and chose not to criticise Carter-Vickers, instead saying that the overall positioning from his side was off.
“Listen, there’s no blame on Cam,” he told the media at his post-match press conference. “Obviously, they steal the ball from him but if we’re in a better position we deal with the cross.
“The learning in it from a team is that you can’t be coming out of the space until you’ve got good control of the ball and the game.
“It’s a poor goal from our perspective. We want to win every game we play, so there’s maybe that mindset that we’re running out of position before we had control of the ball. That’s just the idea of wanting to win the game.
“It was a really good cross and a fantastic header by Pedro. But if I look at it from our perspective, we can negate the goal just by our positioning.
“Lots of really good positive stuff in the game, and that’s how I coach. Yeah, I coach on the areas we’ve got to be better in, and we’ll highlight that. But there were lots of positives in the game, in the second half where we had that control. I certainly won’t forget.” (Scottish Football Podcast)
So Rodgers’ big frustration was his side getting a bit carried away in the closing stages of the match. I must admit, on second viewing, it’s probably even harsh to label it as a Carter-Vickers mistake.
The ball wasn’t ever really secured by the American. He had Lazio players all over him in the middle of the park. He shouldn’t have cut back towards his own goal. But, equally, it wasn’t like he passed the ball straight to an opposition player.
The obvious lesson here, in Rodgers’ mind at least, is that we must remain solid until the ball is comfortably in our possession. Getting carried away and throwing caution to the wind may work domestically. But it’s a different story in the Champions League.
Once Lazio regained the ball we were open, exposed and asking for trouble.
In other news, 3 things we learned as Celtic lose to Lazio
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