Brendan Rodgers is a Celtic character assassin but here's why he was RIGHT to call out underperformers - Hugh Keevins

It must have been galling for Brendan Rodgers to have to resort to character assassination to spark a performance out of his players in Celtic’s recent games against St Johnstone and Hibs.

What else can you call it when the manager publicly accuses his team of being soft in their mentality and weak enough to be bullied when they lost a goal in Perth last Sunday? But Rodgers was right to do what he did. Because the games leading up to the pivotal meeting with Rangers at Celtic Park on December 30 are all about mental strength as much as, if not more than, able bodies.

Those not mentally strong and tactically disciplined on that occasion will be mercilessly exposed on live TV as being inadequates. That’s why the whole Todd Cantwell controversy over his early substitution in a Europa League tie against Aris Limassol was an overblown pile of nonsense.

Philippe Clement opted for a highly public punishment exercise to remind Cantwell of the manager’s need for players to follow instructions. Some at Celtic and Rangers can give the impression of being liable to wilt under the strain of it all in Glasgow.

Celtic’s Yang Hyun-jun couldn’t concentrate well enough to keep the ball in the park or look across the line to see if he was offside at McDiarmid Park. That’s before he was given a merciful reprieve from further suffering and taken out the line of sight.
Under those circumstances, who knows when he’ll be back?

The likes of Jose Cifuentes and Sam Lammers can look cowed by the sight and sound of a full house at Ibrox. And mental frailty isn’t good in a city where the intensity of the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers is now at an unhealthy level of disdain for one another.

I had one caller on the radio last week who