Celtic v Falkirk – Everything said at Brendan’s Media Conference

Q: Brendan, you’re heading to Kazakhstan on Champions League qualification duty. How do you feel about that?

Brendan Rodgers: “Great! Probably like everyone else, but listen, if we’re honest, I think everyone would have preferred the closer team and not so much of a journey. Listen, it is what it is. We’ve been there before, and the first leg we want to make a real push to set a standard in that game on Wednesday, and then we go there the following week and look to qualify. Such a huge game, big game and when it comes, we’ll be ready for it.”

Q: What did you learn from your previous experience in terms of making sure the logistics don’t make the football match any harder?

Brendan Rodgers:  “Well, I think that operationally we were very, very good. I think there’s no stone unturned to make sure the preparation’s right. We’ve got a brilliant operations team here, with Brendan O’Neill, who leads that. Wherever we go, the pre-season, everything, he and his staff, they do a brilliant job along with the club in organising and making sure flights and hotels and everything. So logistically, we’ll do everything we possibly can to make the journey and the preparation, because that’s what it’s all about. You’ve got to try and prepare for such a mammoth journey, so the preparation is key for that. After this actual press conference, we’ll have another sort of meeting on that. But the club will do everything they can, I’m sure, to ensure the preparation is what we would want.”

Q: You mentioned before your previous experience as well, really making the home tie count as well. Does that change the dynamics slightly, putting that extra emphasis on that, or is that the same as you would be doing anyway?

Brendan Rodgers:  “I think you would do that in any case. I think you have your home leg first, and you want to play well. And I think over the two legs, I think we had, we had the game against Astana, we had a really good result, 5-0 in that one. And I remember the Be’er Sheva game, we were 5-0 up at a point in that, and I think it ended up 5-2. Our job in the first leg won us the second leg. So yeah, there was a wee bit of a fret in that game which shouldn’t have been. You know, we were 6-1 up at halftime in aggregate, and all of a sudden, they get three goals from nowhere, and then it ends up what, 8-4, I think the aggregate, which makes it look really, really comfortable. But there was a period in that second game, in the second half, that it wasn’t great. We’ll get there prepared and ready, and as I said, it’s such a huge game, so we’ll be really focused on that.”

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