What Brendan Rodgers and Celtic players spoke about in dressing room after defeat to Kilmarnock

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Celtic’s first Scottish Premiership defeat of the season was a sore one to take.

The Bhoys were not good enough in Ayrshire on Sunday and after a dismal second-half performance, Kilmarnock were entitled to capitalise and pick up the three points for themselves.

For manager Brendan Rodgers, the big frustration was that the team simply didn’t stick to their principles after half-time, having gone into the break a goal up.

It’s a point he reckons the players themselves are well aware of, with a frank discussion taking place in the dressing room at Rugby Park following the 2-1 defeat.

Brendan Rodgers goes into what went wrong for Celtic

The Celtic boss said [Daily Record]: “The players know themselves. We spoke after the game about this isn’t how we want to do it. In the second-half, we played their game instead of playing our game.

“We got rid of the ball in the second-half instead of passing it and there is a big difference. Our biggest issue in the second half was that we never made passes and we ended up being too negative in our passing.

“We weren’t able to make passes to take us up the pitch and that was the biggest disappointment of the second-half. We couldn’t sustain any attacking threat in the game. We had one chance when Matt ran through, but little simple things we were winning in the first-half, we weren’t in the second half.

“If you play a team that’s pressing and right up against you there you’ve got to pass the ball forward. Because that forward pass eliminates pressure. And we weren’t able, for some reason, to do that.”

This is the fourth occasion this season that Celtic have dropped points, with a defeat in the Scottish League Cup – also to Killie – adding to the disappointments.

The concern for fans is that a strong run of consistency is now needed and that there is little room for error with Rangers potentially just two points behind if they win their game in hand.

Celtic need to string together strong results and performances until the winter break at least, when the squad can regroup and the Bhoys can enter the transfer market. It’s win by any means necessary until then.

In other news, The latest on Cameron Carter-Vickers Celtic injury after Nat Phillips disappoints vs Kilmarnock.