Celtic’s Champions League tactical structure has become a hot topic in the wake of their 7-1 defeat to Borussia Dortmund last week.
On a night that the Bhoys put behind them with a late victory at Ross County, nothing went right as they went down at Signal Iduna Park.
Post-match, Brendan Rodgers said Celtic wouldn’t change their Champions League approach in future matches despite the margin of their loss in Germany.
He stated: “Well, we always have to adapt, but sometimes the quality just breaks through that. So are we going to sit in and camp and wait and wait? No, we won’t do that.
“We play a way that allows us domestically to dominate. We know what’s going to be difficult at times for us to do that, but we still have to show our ability with the ball.”
With Celtic’s next European fixture against Atalanta taking place in just over two weeks, Michael Stewart has had his say on how the reigning Scottish Premiership champions should look to set themselves up against elite opposition across the rest of the league phase.
Michael Stewart’s verdict on Celtic Champions League approach
Speaking on the Scottish Football Social Club, Stewart believes Celtic only need to make slight adjustments out of possession to give themselves a better chance of avoiding heavy margins of defeat in the Champions League.
He explained: “I think it’s become a very polarised debate and the manager is not helping it because he’s entrenching himself in this ‘this is how we’re going to play’ (mentality).
“The other side of it is where people feel like you need to park the bus and have a back five in place and things like that; that’s not going to happen quite clearly because of the way the manager has spoken about it.
“I just feel like a little bit of nuance here and there (would suffice). Big moments in the game, there’s a better structure to the team when they are in possession to stop the counter-attacks on them.
“It’s little things like that; you don’t have to fundamentally change the way the team plays because it’s not going to happen. If you have a little bit of a slight mentality shift, and a slight adjustment to things, you can perhaps avoid the batterings that they’ve had. If you do that, it buys a lot of goodwill and buys a lot of extra time.”
Celtic fans want to see Champions League lessons learned
As supporters, there is nothing more frustrating than a bad night on the European stage. However, there won’t be much to complain about if there are visible improvements against Atalanta and beyond.
Without going over old ground too much, you can believe on one hand that Celtic are an irresistible force domestically, yet still have to find a balance in thriving on the European stage.
Domestically, the reigning Scottish Premiership champions have won every single one of their matches this season. Coupling that with the Bhoys’ Champions League victory against Slovan Bratislava on matchday one of the competition, there is plenty to be positive about.
With the feelgood factor swiftly returning away to Ross County last weekend, hopefully, it can continue on the other side of the international break!
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