Celtic had a lot to be worried about coming out of the year's first Glasgow Derby. They lost 3-0 against the Rangers at Ibrox. After completely dominating the contest over the past few years, not many would have seen such a one-sided result coming. Brendan Rodgers needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out where it all went wrong for the Hoops.
One of the complaints that many Celtic fans had after the game was the lack of changes at half-time. The Hoops were completely flat in the first 45 minutes but Rodgers decided to stick with his starting XI.
The Celtic manager waited until the 64th minute before making his first change, as three substitutions were made at the same time. It did not end up having the effect he would have been hoping for though as the Rangers got their second just a couple of minutes after that.
Perhaps things could have turned out a bit differently if changes had been made at the break. Now, Rodgers has explained why he chose not to alter things. As reported by 67 Hail Hail, he said:
"I wanted to give the players the opportunity to see if we could get that sort of reaction and I always leave it.
“It was in my mind to do that. But no, we went for the extra 10-15 minutes, and nothing really happened. We started the second half okay, but after that, we made the change."
Celtic boss explains why he didn't make half-time changes vs Rangers
It remains to be seen how things play out for Celtic moving forward. The gap in the league title race is still a significant 11 points.
So, Celtic should have enough in the tank to get over the finish line. One can only hope that this was just a bad day at the office and not a sign of things to come in the future.
The January transfer window also gives them a chance to strengthen in a few areas where they do not seem great at the moment. There has been a lot of talk about signing another winger, left-back and perhaps even making an addition in midfield. Let's see what the future holds.