Brendan Rodgers blamed the Almaty Central Stadium pitch in two separate post-match interviews after Celtic were dumped out of the Champions League.
The Hoops were desperately devoid of quality in the second leg to break Kairat down, as the game went the full distance in Kazakhstan.
After a 0-0 draw in the first leg at Parkhead, Celtic went on to lose 3-2 on penalties after 120 minutes of poor footballing quality from both sides.
Celtic had more than enough on the pitch to seal progression to the league phase of the Champions League, but Rodgers could not get the best out of his players.
He refused to throw his players under the bus for losing after the game, but did call out the home side’s pitch on two occasions after the match.
Celtic boss Rodgers calls out ‘awful’ pitch
Rodgers just simply cannot come out and blame the pitch, even if it wasn’t up to the standard of a Celtic Park, for example.
He told reporters on Monday there would be ‘no excuses’ if Celtic couldn’t go out into the second leg and win the game. Well, he’s made room for one.
Speaking to Amazon Prime, he said: “I thought overall it was a poor game, the pitch made it awful. We were defensively okay but couldn’t quite make the breakthrough.
We had good chances, especially in the second half and in extra-time we had opportunities to win it. When it goes to penalties anything can happen. Overall, very disappointed.”
Rodgers mentioned Kairat pitch again in press conference
Rodgers was quick to then enter the media room inside the Almaty Central Stadium to face many of the same journalists as he did on Monday.
The Celtic manager lamented the quality on show and blamed that on the pitch.
He said: “At this level, even with teams who maybe don’t quite have the quality but they’re hard to break down, you still need that little bit of extra finesse, precision and goalscoring quality to break through.
We obviously missed a big chance at home, and then tonight, like I said, it wasn’t a great game of football.
“If you’re watching that as Champions League football, you wouldn’t say it was anywhere near that level. That was more down to the pitch on that, I felt, but we just have to accept it.
“Congratulations to Kairat for making it into the Champions League, but we missed a huge opportunity.
