Celtic have their winning mentality back

If last night did not sum up European nights at Celtic Park then I don’t know what does. In what was for me one of the most exciting nights at Paradise in some time, Celtic showed what they have completely failed to make clear in the previous few seasons, bravery. Scoring five goals in a Champions League playoff leg would have been unthinkable to many Celts before the arrival of Brendan Rodgers, yet it was almost an expectation after the dismantling of Motherwell just a week before.

Rodgers’ ability to adapt to changing scenarios throughout the game more than earns the money Celtic have laid on the table for his services. The whole morale and demeanour of the squad is unrecognisable to that under Ronny Deila and, with the use of Brendan’s favourite adjective, character was shown to ride a setback and retain the dominance in a Celtic performance that echoed reminiscence of the Martin O’Neill era. Celtic looked hungry and full of desire, desire to press high, desire to get the ball up the field quickly and with purpose, possession with a purpose – the one key difference Brendan has brought to this Celtic side.

The early goal from Tom Rogic set the tone for the evening, taking advantage of Scott Sinclair’s intelligent display of attacking prowess as he persistently found space around the back of the right-sided centre-half for Hapoel, and showing the positional awareness of a Premier League footballer. This is what Sinclair brings. His movement, when paired with his pace, makes him almost unplayable at his peak, and the frontline are already garnering a key understanding of each other’s style of play early in the season.

Of course then, we come to James Forrest. Where on earth has this boy been for the previous two seasons? Again I will reiterate we are playing with a purpose, which Forrest has in abundance and it is showing. The fact he could cross a ball capable of beating the first man, let alone being perfectly placed for Leigh Griffiths to power home would have been unthought of a year ago. It shows the influence in terms of man management Rodgers is having on this squad even at an early stage.

Griffiths gladly ate up the chance and timed his run to perfection and powered the ball home putting Celtic 2-0 ahead, and yet at this stage the negative thoughts of recent past still remained in supporters’ mindsets, praying the Hoops got a third before half-time to potentially put the tie to bed. Those prayers were answered with what can only be described as a Nakamura-esque free-kick from a man who many still felt before this match was incapable of making the step up on the biggest stage of them all, Griffiths proved each and every one of them wrong, myself included, by bending the ball sublimely past the hapless Hapoel goalkeeper at an acute angle leaving Celtic 3-0 up at the break.

And yet, even still, after a phenomenal, fluid obliteration of the Israeli opposition, the first thought of BT Sport presenter Gary Lineker was of flashbacks to the Malmo play-off tie only twelve months prior and I have to say my mind instantly went to that game as well. There was an overhanging lack of trust in these players mentally from the Ronny Deila era, setback after setback from seemingly unreachable positions had completely destroyed the faith fans had in this squad. We have seen the improving stature of the team already, the ability to recover from setbacks showing that character Brendan Rodgers is striving for. And as Hapoel scored two quickfire goals past the questionable Craig Gordon, that idea of “here we go again” rang through the mind of each and every Hoops fans, but, and here is the big difference, we trusted our manager to adapt to the situation to improve things. He did exactly that.

Taking off Callum McGregor, who opened up play in the first half but failed to deal with the increasing physicality in the midfield as the tie went on for Nir Bitton, was a  pivotal substitution that I thought made quite an unseen difference. The midfield looked less open, it looked more structured and in control, and you could see this had affected Hapoel as their main target man was forced to drop deeper to gain possession from teammates. In turn was much less effective, hence why Ben Sahar came on for them later on to improve their technical ability in and around the Celtic half. We had came through the ten minute spell of which Rodgers’ poignantly sighted as a lack of experience of a high press and dealing with transition and interchange of player positions with McGregor not covering Kolo Toure leaving space for Hapoel for their first goal and with the destructured shape that left Scott Brown again having to cover McGregor who in the defensive phase in our new system does not yet have the intelligence to spot moments of interchange.

With this, and the arrival of Saidy Janko adding pace down the right flank, allowed a partnership with James Forrest to exploit what was clearly an out of depth Hapoel left-hand side. Alongside Moussa Dembele’s arrival for a tiring Tom Rogic, Celtic had a second wind in the attacking phase to break down a fairly stubborn Hapoel Be’er Sheva defensive shape. Dembele’s header from a fantastic whipped delivery from Leigh Griffiths highlighted the change in mentality of this side, with the aggressive press causing all sorts of problems for Hapoel, they knew they could score more, they had the purpose of scoring more, and we saw that when Scott Brown fired the ball into the right corner.

This is the difference. This is why we should be excited about this Celtic team. They know they are good enough, they know they can trust their manager to adapt, and they have the utmost respect for his footballing philosophy. With all of  those elements together, with a 5-2 home win going into the second leg in Israel, Celtic fans are talking about how many we can beat this team by away from home. They are talking about how good individual performances were, they are not as concerned about liabilities and a “lets keep it tight” mentality. Right now, only two months into Brendan Rodgers’ reign, we are confident, we have high expectations and the team are delivering on them each and every game that passes. Most importantly, we are playing the Glasgow Celtic way.