The 'good signs' that Brendan Rodgers can buck Champions League trend with Celtic and reach knockout stage

No matter how you dress it up, Brendan Rodgers’ record in the Champions League doesn’t look pretty.

His three group stage campaigns over his two spells in charge of Celtic have delivered just two wins and brought 12 defeats from 18 games. Among the losses, there have been especially painful evenings in each of his three tilts at the tournament with the Hoops – going down 7-0 in Barcelona in 2016, 7-1 at Paris St-Germain in 2017 and then last season’s 6-0 humbling away to Atletico Madrid.

Throw in his only group stage tilt as Liverpool boss in 2014-15, when he oversaw just one victory and missed out on the knockout stages, and it’s easy to see why Rodgers is so keen to address such a blot on his CV. Improving Celtic’s credibility in European football’s elite competition was one of his clearly stated aims when he returned to the club last year. Tomorrow’s draw in Monaco will outline the scale of the challenge in the new-look league phase of the revamped Champions League.

But Charlie Mulgrew, a member of the last Celts side to reach the knockout stages back in 2013, believes Rodgers is now ready to bridge that gap. He said: “Celtic can get back to the knockout stage and there’s a manager in place who is the right man for the job in terms of that.

“Brendan has proved his quality. He’s proven it at Premier League level although, he’d admit, probably not at Champions League level. It’s not a competition he’s had loads of time in. But it’s something he said when he came back, that he wanted to do better in Europe. Hopefully he can bring that to Celtic.

“He’ll be working and doing things in the background that you don’t see in order to find out how he can do that. So I think it will come one day – and hopefully it is this year.