Brendan Rodgers Celtic dressing room fury will strike fear in to players for DAYS as 'soft' tag leaves a scar

Callum McGregor admits Brendan Rodgers' dressing room blast at his Celtic players will sting for days to come.

Being branded soft is an accusation no professional footballer takes lightly. Let alone when it’s fired in your direction by your own manager. McGregor might have been the catalyst for Celtic’s rescue job in Perth on Sunday afternoon but he wasn’t hiding from a first half that was about as painful as it’s been for Celtic this season.

And he insists the manager was spot on when he laid into his players for being soft, for getting bullied and being too comfortable in their shirts. As warning shots go to players - and coming off the back of Rodgers’ admission he needs more quality last week - this one was delivered with a bazooka. Asked if the managers’ words sting, the skipper said: “Yes. As a professional you never want to be called soft. That will sit with the players in three, four, five days’ time because nobody likes to get a sore one off the manager.

“We have to take it on the chin and we deserved it. You never want to be soft. That’s the one thing when you’re a good football team and people try to look for areas to exploit then the last thing as a professional footballer you want to be called is soft. That hurts the group. We can’t have too many moments like that because you’ll see teams will try to play on it. We’ve got to be better and stronger in those moments especially when we are defending the box.

“It was definitely fair what he said. The first half performance was nowhere near good enough to be a Celtic team.

“These places are difficult to come. If you don’t start the game well it gives them momentum. You could see after 25 minutes they got a couple of presses on and their tails went u[. They