Bruised Brendan Rodgers claims Celtic were 'SPOOKED' by Dortmund demolition but boss will never park the bus

Bruised Brendan Rodgers reckons his Celtic players were “spooked” by an early Borussia battering as he watched his side suffer a Dortmund demolition in the Champions League.

But despite being his Hoops hammered 7-1 on matchday two the Irishman insists he will never park the bus against the continental big guns. Rodgers, who has suffered thumping against PSG, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, in his two spells as Celtic boss, admitted they have to learn from the heavy defeats but won’t “camp in” as he looks to transform their domestic dominance into Europe.

Celtic fell behind after just seven minutes through Emre Can’s spot kick but Daizen Maeda gave the visitors hope against the Bundesliga giants with a quickfire leveller. But the roof caved in at the Westfalen Stadium as Karim Adeyemi hit a hat-trick, Serhou Guirassy netted a double, one also from the spot, and Felix Nmecha completed the rout.

Rodgers admitted that whirlwind start did them damage. He said: “We’re really disappointed with the result and performance-wise I don’t think I’ve been involved in a game where virtually every mistake we got was punished and that’s the highest level of modern football.

"We could have been better with the ball but going down 3-1 and 4-1 early seemed to spook us a little bit and we didn’t play with the same confidence and they were playing at a high level.

“The guys shows great spirit in the second half and we had more possession of the ball and took greater risk but ultimately we were beaten by a much better team. We will assess it and look back afterwards. We wanted to press the game but we wanted to be balanced and be tight and compact but too many times when we ran out of position top players punished us. We’ll look at that for