BREN AIN'T TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL

Ex-pupil teaches Rodgers lesson

- KEITH JACKSON

HANDS up those of us who have coached a team or played a game in the Champions League.

No, me neither. So, give or take a few, that makes just about all of us.

And, yet according to the Brendan Rodgers bible, the views and opinions of this, the overwhelming majority, ought to be placed in the file marked "completely and utterly irrelevant". Unless, of course, they happen to agree with him.

There are times when it does feel as if Rodgers labours under his very own Messiah complex and that he's on some sort of mission to educate and enlighten the mere mortals with whom he happens to come into contact whilst carrying out his missionary work.

Which, of course, is very kind of him. But it's not an act of blasphemy to say he's just plain wrong when it comes to his continued attempts at cracking the Champions League code.

Rodgers appears to be spreading the word or at least promoting the notion that some sort of miracle is what is really required in order for his side to avoid having its pants pulled down and routinely ridiculed in the big boys' playground of the European game.

And so, even though Celtic got safely back down the road from the Highlands yesterday after rattling off a seventh straight domestic top flight win - coming from behind and eventually overcoming Ross County - Celtic's manager may have made the long trip south with some serious food for thought.

And not just because he'd have had one ear on the radio commentary of Aberdeen's win over Hearts, which keeps Jimmy Thelin on his coat-tails at the top of the table for the time being at least.

No, in this game every day is a school day and yet, even so, few would have suspected Rodgers would have to travel to Dingwall to discover what he ought to have done in Dortmund - learning a lesson in pragmatism from one of his former pupils.