Rodgers rues costly mistakes against Valencia

Brendan Rodgers felt individual errors were the key reason behind Celtic’s defeat to Valencia on Thursday night.

The Hoops were beaten 2-0 by their Spanish opponents at Parkhead, in the first leg of their Europa League last-32 clash.

Goals from Denis Cheryshev and Ruben Sobrino saw Valencia put themselves in complete control of the tie, ahead of next Thursday’s return fixture in Spain.

Speaking after the game, Rodgers was pleased with much of what he saw from his players, but rued the mistakes that were punished by top class opposition:

I thought we started the game well. We had good control and pressed the game.

But Valencia are a team who wait on your mistakes, they are very organised and compact. Unfortunately for us we made too many mistakes, especially in the first half, under no pressure.

When you do that against good teams it kills your momentum and puts you on the back foot. We did that too many times. At this level you can get punished for it.

We did it before half-time and then lost a poor goal just after half-time. So the lessons learned at this level are you really have to concentrate.

You can get away with it domestically sometimes but not at this level against good teams. If you don’t concentrate, you bring pressure onto yourself. So it ended up a disappointing night for us.

It was a sobering night for Celtic, who once again witnessed firsthand the quality that exists in European competitions.

It will take something special to progress to the last-16 now, but their chances are far from completely over.

A response is required on Sunday afternoon, as Rodgers’ men head to Kilmarnock in another crucial Scottish Premiership clash, looking to keep up their six-point lead at the top of the table.