Brendan Rodgers names 4 major Celtic problems behind Kilmarnock slog as boss demolishes injury narrative

Brendan Rodgers confessed bitter disappointment at the negativity which led to Celtic's Rugby Park collapse.

The deflated manager admitted his team deserted their style and didn’t defend well enough as they crashed to defeat at Kilmarnock. Leading at the interval through Matt O’Riley’s ninth goal of the season, the champions were on course to re-establish their eight-point advantage at the top of the table. Instead, they folded in Ayrshire and went away with nothing.

Rodgers was left to rue the fact his team stopped playing their way when they had the ball and subsequently didn’t do well enough to cope with Killie’s attacks when they didn’t. He said: “The players know themselves. We spoke after the game about this isn’t how we want to do it. In the second-half, we played their game instead of playing our game.

“We got rid of the ball in the second-half instead of passing it and there is a big difference. Our biggest issue in the second half was that we never made passes and we ended up being too negative in our passing.

“I thought in the first-half we were very good. We played at a good speed and created opportunities.

“We could have maybe been more than 1-0 up by half-time, but in the second-half we never got started. You expect a wee bit of pressure for 10 or 15 minutes, which we weathered at set pieces and corners.

“But we never passed the ball. We were under a bit more pressure, sure, but you have to be resistant.

“We weren’t able to make passes to take us up the pitch and that was the biggest disappointment of the second-half. We couldn’t sustain any attacking threat in the game. We had one chance when Matt ran through, but little simple things we were winning in the first-half, we weren’t in the second half.

“When