Dan Wilcox 
Ian MacNicol/Getty Images Sport
It’s fair to say over recent years Celtic haven’t had the best capability to compete in European competition.
Brendan Rodgers openly declared recently that Celtic can’t win a European tournament currently and that the Hoops can’t compete with the best teams it has to offer.
With that comment, Rodgers has been met with both anger and agreement from all angles.
Celtic legend and Lisbon Lion, Willie Wallace, sits very much on the angry side of the fence, however.
Wallace, part of the 1967 cup winning side, says the current gaffer was “wrong” to say what he did.
Having overcome unbelievable odds to see off Inter Milan all those years ago, he’s all too aware that writing yourselves off is a pointless task. He said:
Maybe I’m looking at things the way I did when I played at Celtic. We wanted to win the European Cup. Now we have a manager who says we can’t win it.
As a Celtic fan, I think that’s wrong. I know it’s a dream, but I want to at least see them try. When the attitude is: ‘We don’t need to win . . . the gaffer doesn’t expect us to win anyway’, that’s not for me.
It’s a bold call out from Wallace but one many fans will acknowledge is correct. Others, of course, will understand why Rodgers made the statement.
With a tough group to get through in this year’s Europa League, Rodgers’ predictions may well come to fruition. But is he being realistic or pessimistic? That much is certainly up for contention.
