Brendan Rodgers sees 'strange' Celtic ref decisions in Lazio loss but vows they will fight on in Champions League

Brendan Rodgers insists he couldn’t fault his players after they went down to a last-gasp Lazio defeat and admitted there were some “strange decisions” at Parkhead.

But the Irishman insists they will be back fighting when they face Atletico Madrid in their third Group E game later this month, still searching for their first point. Kyogo broke his Champions League duck to send the home fans wild but they were pegged back by the Serie A side as Matias Vecino levelled and Pedro headed home in injury time - after Luis Palma looked to have won it only for the Honduran’s strike to be ruled out for offside.

Rodgers was proud of his troops despite the loss and told TNT Sports: “I’m disappointed in terms of the result but really disappointed for the players because they gave so much to the game, scored a fantastic goal. I’m disappointed with the goal we conceded but we came out in the second half and apart from one chance early on we looked like the team that could go on and win it. I thought we had done, it’s just unfortunate Daizen makes a touch and Luis is offside.

“I’m disappointed with the winning goal, you just have to secure the game at that point and that’s just game management. You’ve got to make sure you’ve got control of the ball and space before you vacate it and just that one moment of a quality cross and header sees us lose the game. But I can’t fault the players for effort, commitment and moments of quality we showed in the game.

“We got into some good areas of course and sadly it didn’t quite happen at certain moments in the game. But I can’t be critical of this group of players for what they’ve given in the game against a good side that have some top quality players. We should have had more. We’ll analyse the