Brendan Rodgers full of praise for Dorus de Vries

Brendan Rodgers was pleased to seal the three points with a 1-0 win against an impressive Dundee side in the Scottish Premiership clash at Celtic Park today.

The Hoops dominated and controlled the match, however, it took a 61st minute strike from Olivier Ntcham to open the scoring, and that proved to be the only goal of the game.

Celtic continued to hunt for a second, and the closest they got was when Scott Sinclair’s goal was ruled out late on. Although, getting the win is all that matters and The Bhoys achieved that.

Rodgers reflected on the result speaking to the media after the full-time whistle.

He said:

In terms of our performance, we weren’t as fluent as I would have liked us to be. In parts of the game we were creative but at other times we were too loose with our passing.

I said to the players before the game, we’re going into a run of fixtures now and champions do that little bit extra. You have to step up, there are a lot of games that require a lot of concentration and lots of changes for us today.

I thought, bearing all of that in mind, to get the result, clean-sheet and three points was a brilliant result for us.  I thought Dundee did well today, I was impressed and I think they have some good players.

Rodgers was not entirely impressed with his side’s display, and there was plenty about it that could have been a lot better, but it was enough to get the victory and stretch their domestic unbeaten run to 59 matches.

Dorus de Vries made his first competitive appearance of the season and he marked it with a clean-sheet to Rodgers’ delight.

The manager praised him, saying:

You see today why I have him in the team. Testament to how professional he is and how hard he’s worked. Towards the end when the ball was coming into the box, he showed his agility and concentration to make the saves. Overall, I was really pleased with the result.

It is always difficult for a player to perform at their best when they have not played in months, and de Vries rose to the challenge to put in a terrific performance. He has given Rodgers something to think about for upcoming games, and he deserves to start again in the near future.

De Vries went on to speak to the media, saying:

Such a lovely ground to play football. It’s been over a year since my last competitive game so I was looking forward to it. You never know when your opportunity is going to come along and when you come in you want to keep that clean-sheet.

Sometimes as a keeper you have the opportunity to show what you’ve got, sometimes not. You have to produce those saves, you just have to take the opportunity to produce them.

Once you come in and there’s an unbeaten run it’s a pressure game and you want to do the best of your ability. No matter where you go you’re happiest when you play. This is a special club and being here is a privilege.

The 36-year-old is a man of experience and he certainly brought that to the table today. He has a determined personality and he is not willing to settle as Celtic’s second choice. That is only good for Rodgers as there is continuous competition for the number one jersey, which forces each goalkeeper to perform at their highest level each game.

The Bhoys will be glad to get today’s game out of the way with a victory, and they can now firmly concentrate on their Champions League away trip to Bayern Munich on Wednesday.

Celtic will go there hunting for some sort of result to put them in with a great chance of qualifying for the knockout stages of the competition.