Rodgers must do better, but Celtic and Scottish football are stuck in limbo

Whether Celtic are indeed simply flat-track bullies remains to be seen, with Champions League progress still very much a live possibility for Brendan Rodgers and his men. But it seems to me that many of us – myself included, in fairness, along with the Celtic manager, their supporters and many pundits – had rather got caught up in the hype.

For the fans, that’s not really so much of an issue. Following a football team is all about getting carried away, after all. But seeing this Celtic team charge at Borussia Dortmund in their own back yard was rather like watching someone stuffing a couple of fillet steaks into their trousers and louping the fence at Blair Drummond.

They were mauled, alright. It’s easy to sit here in hindsight and pretend we all knew that was going to happen, mind you, when the opposite was broadly true.

Celtic, after all, had gone into this game with their confidence through the roof. They had dismissed every challenge the domestic scene had to offer to that point this season, Rangers included, with almost disdainful ease.

They had also got their Champions League campaign off to a wonderful start with a 5-1 hounding of Slovan Bratislava at Celtic Park, while their warm-up game for the trip to Germany produced perhaps their most thrilling performance to date.

In their dismantling of St Johnstone on Saturday night, Celtic produced a level of football that was comparable to anything Rodgers’ side managed in his first spell in charge, or that Ange Postecoglou’s teams had produced during his own time in Glasgow.

It is easy to understand then, in that context, why Rodgers felt his side were ready to lace up the gloves and go into a clash against a proper European heavyweight swinging, as ridiculous as it now sounds that he would adopt the same line-up and tactics in the Westfalen as he did at McDiarmid Park.

It is funny though just how the level of opposition is forgotten in such cases as the Saints drubbing, yet brought to the forefront in the fallout when the boot is on the other foot and Celtic take a thumping in European competition. Hence the widespread mirth amongst fans of ‘diddy clubs’ this week.

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire detailed the disparity between the resources of the smaller clubs in Scotland to Celtic, and then Celtic to Borussia Dortmund, rather starkly on his social media feed yesterday. Predictably, at the prompting of a salty St Johnstone fan.

In the most recent figures available, Dortmund had 2.9 times the turnover of Celtic, while Celtic had 24.4 times the revenue of St Johnstone. In terms of wage bills, Dortmund spent 3.4 times more than Celtic, while Celtic spent 12.8 times more than the Saints.

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It was in transfer fees where the biggest chasm could be found, with Dortmund’s squad costing 6.1 times that of Celtic, but Celtic’s costing 185.7 times more than St Johnstone’s.

All this does of course is underline what we already know. Celtic have vast resources compared to their domestic rivals, and so will win most games, dish out a few hidings along the way, and occasionally trip up.

The same logic applies in reverse when they take on Europe’s best, but with the gap theoretically being smaller, it is also a concern that such humiliations are rather becoming the norm on the road, instead of something to be sucked up once in a while. Particularly, it has to be said, under Rodgers.

After tucking away a domestic double last season, the Celtic manager said that improvement in Europe was his focus. In the big games, it seems, there are still plenty of lessons – and the same ones that have gone unheeded for years – for he and his team to learn.

He still has a chance to redeem this campaign, but the same Celtic fans who patted Falkirk on the head for coming to Glasgow recently and having a go – only to leave with plenty of plaudits and an eventual 5-2 hiding – are among those now calling for their own manager to adopt some realism in Europe. Perhaps this experience will make them think again when calling out teams for ‘parking the bus’ at Celtic Park. And perhaps not.

As it stands, the gaps detailed above between the elite and Celtic, and between Celtic and the rest of Scottish football, will only widen further still. They continue to pile up astonishing wealth relative to their domestic league, but can’t pull in quite enough to really make a fist of it among the mega-rich clubs of Europe.

They, and Scottish football, are hardly alone. Just as predictable as the jokes from rival fans after results such as these are the existential crises they inspire for both Celtic and for the Scottish game, but as Dinamo Zagreb, Young Boys and other sides from smaller leagues around Europe are finding, their role in the Champions League now amounts to being well remunerated cannon fodder.

Rodgers has to carry the can of course for the thumpings his teams endure at Champions League level, unmatched in regularity and severity as they are. He must find a way to make his team more competitive against the top teams. But the real issues, I’m afraid, won’t be solved by the Celtic manager setting his team up in a low block in Bergamo.

It is tempting to say that Celtic are stuck in a kind of purgatory, positioned as they are between the heaven of domestic dominance and the hell of frequent Champions League hidings. But that would suggest a temporary state.

Scottish football, alas, is now in a limbo where Celtic are too good for their competition at home but not good enough to really compete with the best in Europe, while the best the rest can hope for is to have cause to point and laugh at them every once in a while.

UEFA, and clubs from their top five leagues, meanwhile, continue to point and laugh at us all.