“If you dream in management then you won’t be here long,” Brendan Rodgers’ strange statement concerning his future

Brendan Rodgers shared an update on Lennoxtown following the players’ return from Dortmund at 4.30am on Wednesday.

The Celtic squad spent the remainder of the day free before returning to their training facility on Thursday morning for the Dortmund postmortem. When that was completed, everyone moved on to the next challenge, which will take place tomorrow at Dingwall against Ross County at 12 noon on Sunday.

“Clearly, there was disappointment in the aftermath of it. It’s always emotionally challenging and difficult. You can’t dwell on it, you’ve got to look at it and analyse it, but very quickly you have to move on,” the Celtic manager said.

“That’s the nature of professional sports. You have that day to grieve, which is never nice, but always think that setbacks like that are a great opportunity to grow and bounce back – even to a higher level than you were when you started the game. We’re back on it, working well today, then we get ready for the game at the weekend.”

Brendan was asked if different players needed a different attitude after a 7-1 mauling, with some requiring an arm around the shoulder, and if they could all bounce back in the same way.

“That’s the job of the manager and the leaders within the team. We got back at half four, and then we gave them a free day, which gave them a lot of thinking time.

“After the game, I was really disappointed for firstly the supporters, as the noise two hours before the game in the stadium was amazing. With the journey they had been on, we were disappointed that we couldn’t give them more,” Brendan admitted.

“I feel for the players because over these last seven months, the path we’ve been on and continue to be on of improvement and being an exciting team to play. Things went against us in the game and before we know it, we’ve conceded five goals in the first half, so it becomes a challenge in the second half.

“Setbacks are there to grow from, you can dwell on it and become bitter with it but it’s not something that I like to do. This is when you lead, and we saw it last year in moments where we had to be resilient. When it’s tough, you have to lead in those moments. That’s our job, we made a brilliant start to our season, but it was a tough one,” Rodgers added.

“I’m experienced enough to know that when the stakes are high you have to sometimes expect defeat when playing high-level competition. If you don’t, you’re a dreamer, and if you dream in management then you won’t be here long,” Brendan Rodgers said.

“It’s great to dream and for critics to look and think what the score is going to be and what it might be, but as a manager and coach when you’re in the professional game, at times against the Champions League finalists you might expect that you might lose. We’ll learn from that and we’ll be better for it.”