'It’s been a challenging couple of weeks,' Brendan Rodgers

The Celtic manager was asked about the controversial final moments of the match – pity no-one asked why John Beaton was going to give a goal kick rather than a corner before the VAR intervention. James Forrest’s shot only hit of two Kilmarnock players.

Here’s Celtic TV’s Unique Angle….

Here’s everything that said….

Q: After the last-minute win for your team, what was your take on the game?

Brendan Rodgers: “Well, it feels great to get out on the pitch again and obviously to win. It’s never an easy game here at Kilmarnock. You see they’ve started well in terms of not losing games and it tells you the resilience that they have, but I thought we deserved to win the game. It was obviously very tight. First half we had moments, but not enough. We were a bit slow.

“Obviously there’s lots of new players coming in, the connections in the team, so not maybe as fluid. But second half, once we started to feed the wide players quicker and get through the pitch quicker, then we were really dominant in the game, deserved to go in front. And, yeah, then we looked like we could go on to score another goal. But of course at 1-0 it’s never signed off because no matter how much dominance you have, you’re still only a goal up. We concede from the corner, that gives them a little bit of momentum. So then we have to really show our fight, resilience, but also our persistence to keep going right to the very end, and thankfully we get the win in the end.”

Q: What was your take on the penalty incident?

Brendan Rodgers: “Yeah, listen, I think if you’re the home team and you get that given against you then of course you may not be so happy. I think for myself, we create the chaos in the box, create the opportunity and then obviously we get that moment where it does pop up and hit someone on its way, maybe into goal. I don’t know, but it’s certainly on the one image I’ve seen. But like you say it pops up and hits his arm.

“I was really pleased with Kelechi Iheanacho, for him. I think the last penalty he took was for me at Wembley against Manchester City in the Community Shield, he stuck that one away and that was his other moment there, and I think that’s a big moment for him with the supporters and everything else. So, yeah, we got it, he’s still got to score and he scored it and then we take the win.”

Continued on the next page…