Brendan Rodgers insists Celtic woe at Kilmarnock is the pitch and NOTHING else as he seeks transfer 'quality'

Brendan Rodgers says he hopes to get back into the transfer market after watching Celtic fall short against Kilmarnock.

There was an admission of no excuses but the Irishman reckons the artificial Ayrshire pitch played its part on a dismal day as his unbeaten streak in domestic cup competitions came crashing down on a toothless day against Derek McInnes' men. Marley Watkins' second half strike provided a worthy reward for the home endeavour, with this result coming just weeks after beating Michael Beale's Rangers in the Premiership by the same scoreline.

But for Rodgers, he has been left with thinking to do as he sees one of the cups Ange Postecoglou's side claimed last season slip away before August is done. And he tells Sportsound he is looking to the market for an extra spark to give his side a boost. He said: "We didn't do enough to win the game. We had a couple good moments in the first half and some pressure in the second half. We are disappointed with the goal, we have to win our duel and defend it better.

"And on the other side of it we didn't do enough when we had the ball. I thought Yang came on and made a difference, Haksabanovic came in and looked a threat when he was on the field., But other than that we probably didn't have the quality to win the game.

"You have to give all the credit to Kilmarnock. Defended strong and got blocks in when they had to and took one of the few chances they had in the game. We have to analyses ourselves and our quality wasn't good enough in the game.

"There's no excuses, we weren't good enough today. Hopefully, I think you can see we need that quality and we have had quality go out the building. So we definitely need that quality in but we will work very hard to get the players