CELTIC boss Brendan Rodgers insists he was “happy” with his side’s performance – despite the Parkhead men recording their FOURTH goalless draw in their first eleven matches of the season.
The Hoops drew with Rangers at Ibrox in addition to drawing a blank in a two-legged Champions League playoff clash against Kairat Almaty.
And they failed to trouble the scorers again as they dropped to second place in the table behind Hearts in this goalless draw with Hibs.
That’s despite 26 attempts on target, hitting the woodwork twice and seeing a Kelechi Iheanacho effort ruled out for offside.
Hibs defended stoically though and will be content to take a point back along the M8 as they continued their unbeaten start to the campaign.
Rodgers – whose side were greeted with a 12-minute silent protest by a section of the supporters – clearly wants a more clinical edge, but he refused to criticise his team and said he and the Hoops will take “a lot of positives” into their Europa League clash with Braga on Thursday night.
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He told BBC Scotland: “Yes, I was happy with the performance.
“Every metric in the game we were really dominant.
“We had a couple of nil nils this season in the qualification games where we never really threatened.
“But I thought today our football was really good, we got through the pitch well, just lacked that killer instinct in the box. That was partly down to us but I also thought they defended the box really well.
“We had big chances, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
“We stayed calm in the game, but played at a good speed and really got Hibs moving. When the ball sort of broke through we counter pressed it rally well and set pieces we dealt well with.
“It was just that final touch in the box that was lacking. I think we had so many attempts, I think we had 26 attempts and a lot of them in the box,
“We arrived in there but we just couldn’t find the net and when we did we were offside.
“It will be an ongoing process. Players getting confidence and getting their first games. Marcelo [Saracchi] was excellent today, Sebastian [Tounekti] you can see is really good in a one to one.
“And some of the guys who haven’t played for a while gave us that energy as well. We take a lot of positives into Thursday.”
“Whatever we got or didn’t get it [during the transfer window] really is irrelevant because I can’t affect that now. Performance wise I thought it was really good but we just couldn’t get that goal.
“It’s a long season, only the sixth game or something like that. Of course we want to win every game we play – that is the nature of being at Celtic and when you don’t win there can be disappointment.
“I think the supporters can see today that the team did absolutely everything and you always have to give a bit of credit to the opposition because they defended for their lives and kept a clean sheet.”
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