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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
National
Blair Meikle

The slight mistake Celtic made for first time in two years revealed by Rodgers

Celtic made a slight mistake for the first time in two years during the defeat to Ajax, according to Brendan Rodgers.

The Premiership champions had the worst defeat of their pre-season with a 5-1 drubbing at the hands of the Dutch giants, before going on to improve with a victory over Al-Ahli to finish third in the Como Cup.

It followed impressive victories over teams of a similar stature - Sporting Lisbon and Newcastle. But the main concern would be the goals against tally reading five.

Rodgers detailed the slight error his players made in conceding one of the goals. He likes his side to go man-for-man to begin with from goal kicks before dropping into a zonal system.

However, in this instance, they stayed man-to-man for too long.


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He told Celtic TV: “What we tend to do is we will, in some games, go in a static position from a goal kick, man-to-man.

“But while we are in the game, we will then go more to a zonal. We made a little mistake in the last game, where we stayed in our man-to-man for too long, which opened up a little bit too much space, especially towards the end of the game.

“We lost a game in our build-up phase, the third goal, which I said to the players, ‘listen, that’s the first goal we have conceded in build-up in over two years that I have been here, so to do that with the risk we put in the game to play our football, it’s really good, so let us learn from it.’

“It isn’t a structural thing. It’s about positioning, getting there early, and we will be fine.”

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