Everything Brendan Rodgers said to the media following Celtic’s 3-0 win over Ross County at the Global Energy Stadium.
Just give us your thoughts on that performance today. 3-0 in the end, some stunning strikes as well today from your team?
I was pleased. We made a number of changes to bring new energy to the team. It’s difficult when they get the man sent off early because it means it’s a game of attack v defence. But we had some really good chances before taking the lead. I thought the goal that was disallowed should have been a goal. It was two defenders challenging for the ball. I don’t know where the foul was, and it takes an eternity to find out if it was a goal or not. The offside looks really close. I’d have to see it again. It was a game where we needed some energy from the guys at the beginning. We scored some fantastic goals, and their keeper made some brilliant saves. Credit to County, they lost a man so early. You can either unravel or stick at it and keep going, and they did that.
You made six changes for this game. What did you make of the players that came in? Were you impressed by them? Did anyone stand out?
It’s all about the team. The guys came in and worked very hard. It’s about contributing to the performance. Oh Hyeon-gyu comes in and works really hard. I thought we could have used him a little bit more in the first half and went more central at times. The others who came in were steady and concentrated.
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Just got to ask you about Luis Palma as well. What an impact off the bench he had on the team.
He has big quality. It was a brilliant strike for the goal. He has that technical quality and that confidence to shoot, and you see his quality for James’ (Forrest) goal. In that position, you pull it back or stand it up. It was a great dink and Jamesy has got the third header of his career.
Brendan, you mentioned the ruled-out goal and the offside decision as well. VAR again. Is it slightly frustrating or disappointing? What is your opinion?
I’d have to see them again. I haven’t seen the decision but at the time, our replay on the side I felt it took an eternity for the VAR decisions. So I don’t know about the offside one, they say it was very close, but I haven’t seen it back. But the other one, it’s two guys who have jumped for the ball. I don’t know where the foul was, so that was a little bit disappointing, but we kept going and working to find the moments of quality to win the game.
Is that the most pleasing thing, that you had those frustrations, but the patience to stick at it? You had 39 shots at goal today.
You've got to attack the game because it can be a really difficult challenge. Malky (Mackay) and his team won’t give up and dismantle in the game just because they are down to ten men. They went man to man in the game, and we had to work really hard to create the space, but the players did that wonderfully well. The players worked well, and their goalkeeper got the man of the match, which tells you that we were really aggressive in our attacking play.
Was that game the perfect preparation for midweek, given the squad rotation and players coming off and on?
Yeah. I wanted to see players play and give them game time, but they're under pressure to perform. There are no gimmes, you have to perform well whilst keeping the structure of our game. The players did that. We recovered some of our players who have played a lot like Matt O’Riley and Alistair Johnston, so it worked really well for us.
What about big Oh today? An old-fashioned centre forward’s performance today, he was quite selfless.
He did really well. He’s simplifying his game. Sometimes you can come and try to force the game, but he played it simply, set the game up well and worked very hard.
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