Friday Round-Up: Peter Lawwell On Brendan Rodgers And Celtic’s Future

THE BIG STORY: Peter Lawwell has been speaking to the press after Celtic’s 2-0 victory over Anderlecht, and he described the job done by Brendan Rodgers as ‘remarkable’, particularly as many of the players who played against Anderelcht played under the much-maligned Ronny Deila.

I expect that amongst the players Lawwell could be talking about is Dedryck Boyata, whose Celtic career looked over after a dreadful performance in the 2015 Scottish Cup Semi-Final but has since been transformed into a rock at the heart of the defence.

The other subject Peter Lawwell spoke about was the news that Celtic have been granted planning permission to build a new hotel, museum and ticket office at Celtic Park and London Road.

Celtic’s chief executive says that Celtic are now in their ‘strongest financial position ever’, and the upcoming development will only add to the coffers.

OTHER NEWS: Some last words on the Anderlecht game: we wrote our player ratings for the game here and there’s an article up about how the victory can be the blueprint for Celtic’s future in Europe here. Brendan Rodgers hopes that the win will enable this group of Celtic players to ‘create our own history’.

It’s back to league duty at Celtic Park tomorrow as Celtic take on Neil Lennon’s Hibs - we’ll have a preview up later on - and Lennon has been talking about his relationship with Brendan Rodgers.

No word as yet on Scott Brown’s injury suffered against Anderlecht, he is still awaiting the results of an MRI scan, Kolo Toure thinks that he will be fit for Scotland’s double header next week though.

ON THIS DAY: In 2012 in a rare Saturday at three o’clock away game, goals from Gary Hooper and an Adam Cummins own goals gave Celtic a 2-0 lead over Motherwell at Fir Park, as we leapfrogged ‘well to go top of the league.

In 1982, Celtic produced an incredible performance to defeat Johan Cruyff’s Ajax 2-1 in Amsterdam and defeat them 4-3 on aggregate in the first round of the European Cup. Celtic’s goals were scored by Charlie Nicholas and a late winner by George McCluskey.