Brendan Rodgers says thank you to ex-Celtic boss Ronny Deila

Brendan Rodgers thanked Ronny Deila for the work he had done at Celtic and for the players he had brought in. Picture: Craig Williamson/SNS

In his immediate post-match assessment of his team’s laboured and nervy passage into the Champions League group stage on Tuesday night, Rodgers noted the fragile mentality of the squad he inherited.

Those scars left by their failures in the play-off round stage of the tournament in the past two years could clearly be interpreted as indirect criticism of Deila.

But in his later reflections on Celtic’s dramatic 5-4 aggregate win over Hapoel Beer-Sheva, Rodgers provided an unsolicited and warm appraisal of the Norwegian coach’s legacy at the Scottish champions.

Ronny Deila was praised by Brendan Rodgers for winning the league last season. Picture: John Devlin

“I will also say thank you to Ronny for this,” said Rodgers. “Because I wouldn’t have got the chance to qualify for the Champions League if he didn’t win the league last season.

“So amongst all the thank-yous I have to say, I want to say a particular thank you to Ronny and his staff. That gave me the chance to come into the club when he decided to move on and try and take the team forward.

“I have respect for other coaches and managers and all I know is there were some good players here when I took over. This is a huge job at Celtic, a very tough job with the expectations of the club and where the club wants to be.”

Celtic are now exactly where major shareholder Dermot Desmond and chief executive Peter Lawwell wanted them to be as an immediate dividend of their considerable close season investment in recruiting Rodgers.

In reaching today’s Champions League group stage draw, Rodgers has overseen a six-match qualifying campaign which contained some matches and moments every bit as unimpressive as some of the performances which brought so much flak Deila’s way.

But regardless of the embarrassing 1-0 defeat by Lincoln Red Imps in Gibraltar at the start of the journey, or the nerve-wracked and error-strewn display in losing 2-0 in Israel and almost blowing a 5-2 first leg lead, the bottom line is that Rodgers has found a way to get there which so painfully eluded Deila.

“They are good players here and they needed help in order to achieve what they wanted to achieve,” added Rodgers.

“They have made huge strides, but there will still be a way to go before they will be where I want them to be.

“Tuesday night showed all the work they have been doing, the long hours, all the tactical work, all the psychological work in terms of getting that resistance to anything thrown at you. You get your rewards on the field and that’s where we want to see them.

“With the riches now in football it’s very, very difficult for Celtic at Champions League level. We haven’t spent nearly anything at all on the squad since we came in.

“But we needed certain types of personalities in here and to add them to the boys here. It’s just to give them a different way of thinking and working and they have responded magnificently. It’s a pleasure to work with them and it’s hopefully only the start for them.”

Having signed Moussa Dembele, Kolo Toure, Scott Sinclair and Dorus de Vries so far, Rodgers will look to claim his share of Celtic’s Champions League windfall to make further additions before next week’s transfer deadline.

“There is a bit of work still to do there,” he said. “We’d obviously spoken about if qualification happens, what it is we need, but the most important thing for Celtic is that it keeps improving what we have and keeping that momentum.

“Our club has built great momentum in a short period of time and we have to keep moving forward.

“That’ll mean bringing players in who will improve us, but we have done an awful lot of great work already in this market. There is a bit of time to do some more and we’ll take some time over the next days to reflect on that and, hopefully, make some improvements.”

That Champions League bounty was in serious danger of slipping through Celtic’s fingers in Israel when they trailed 2-0 just three minutes into the second half and were rocking badly.

A couple of tactical changes by Rodgers eventually steadied the ship, including the introduction of Erik Sviatchenko in a switch to a back five for the closing stages. The Danish defender also passed a note from Rodgers to captain Scott Brown.

“It said: ‘Any danger?’,” joked Rodgers when asked what instructions he had relayed to Brown. “Seriously, it was just to make sure they understood the shape we were changing to. If you leave the message with a player, sometimes it doesn’t get on quick enough.

“Scott’s a great communicator, so Erik gave it to him and he could see the shape of the team and what personnel had to go to what positions and what we were trying to achieve.

“Rip it up quickly and go. I’ve done it in the past. It’s not a book! You have to be short, sharp and concise with your information.

“Listen, the quality of your life is down to the quality of your communication skills. However you get it on there, however it is written, whether it is verbal, you need to get the message on there. I thought we then found a calmness. The issue was that they were throwing caution to the wind and bombing everyone forward. The problem was on the sides. Initially, they had a diamond in the first-half, but the tempo was up for them and we could contain that, so we switched from 4-3-3 to a diamond at the beginning of the half.

“But they were still getting down the sides, so it was a case then of trying to block them. Stick an extra defender on, meaning Kieran Tierney and Saidy Janko could engage their full-backs higher up the pitch. Then we started to deal with things.”