The inquest into Celtic’s loss to Atletico Madrid seems to be drawing to a close now. Fan and mainstream media have all had their say on what went wrong last night but there is no doubt that lessons must be learned.
But could one of those lessons be that Brendan Rodgers may have not picked the correct team? The Celtic manager made four changes from the weekend win over Ross County.
“And whilst you can understand bringing the likes of Kyogo and Matt O’Riley back in, one player that has been performing well found himself back on the Celtic bench.
Brendan Rodgers shares why David Turnbull was dropped for Celtic last night
The Scottish international midfielder seemed to have impressed Rodgers in the build-up to last night’s crucial Champions League tie. Two goals in two games in the SPFL should have made a case for him to start against the Spanish side.
But Rodgers instead opted for Paulo Bernardo in the heart of the Celtic midfield and pre-match, the Celtic manager revealed why.
Rodgers said [TNT Sports], “We have Paulo in there because you need to have a ball-winner. At this level we need someone who can win the ball and he allows us to do that as well as being able to play.
“But tonight, it’s really about the structure of the team, the overall team performance and we just continue to play with that confidence and we do that then we know we can cause Atletico many problems.”
The 24-year-old would have every right to feel hard done by for not starting last night however, I don’t think it would have made much of a difference.
Even Turnbull would have struggled against the relentless Atleti attack and Celtic will just need to put this one down to a learning experience.
As for Turnbull, he just needs to keep plugging away. With his contract up for renewal, the midfielder will be hoping to do enough to impress and earn a new deal before it expires at the end of the season.
In other news, Diego Simeone shares what he ‘saw’ about Daizen Maeda’s red card for Celtic