Celtic defender Jack Hendry has insisted that whatever is going on off the park at the club has no bearing on what happens on it.
Celtic lost 1-0 to Hearts on Saturday afternoon, the worst possible preparation for their third round, second leg UEFA Champions League qualifier against Athens tomorrow night.
It added further pressure on the club in a week in which Brendan Rodgers laid bare his frustrations at the lack of new signings this summer. Asked if that had any influence on what was an insipid performance against Hearts at Tynecastle, Hendry said:
"No, definitely not.
"I haven’t heard anything about and I’m sure the lads aren’t taking any notice of it either. We’re fully focused at the end of the day on getting results, and that’s it.”
Defender Hendry will be expected to maintain his pairing with Jozo Simunovic for the game in Greece. With Dedryck Boyata effectively telling the club he will not play and Kristoffer Ajer suspended, there are few other options available to Rodgers.
It has looked an uneasy partnership at times but the player is aware of just important the need for concentration will be.
"If we play as we did at home we shouldn’t have any problems," said Hendry. "We’re confident going into that game and hopefully we can get the right result.
“I think we’ve just got to remain positive. The last game we played against them I thought we dominated so if we just go over and try to implement our game plan again I’m sure we do well.
“Jozo and I train with each other every day so we know each other’s games well. I thought in large spells we did really well together today. The goal was unfortunate and we need to bounce back from that. But I’m sure whoever plays in central defence will be more than capable.
"Obviously it’s disappointing with the draw and the loss to Hearts but I’m sure with the quality we have in our side we’re going to bounce back strong."
Hendry and Simunovic had a difficult afternoon against the physicality of Uche Ikpeazu at Tynecastle.
"He’s a big lad, obviously he has a gameplan himself, he tries to get himself around," said Hendry. "But I thought we dealt with it well. Obviously they’ve managed to get that goal but apart from that I thought we dealt with it well.”
"I thought we dealt with that well during the game but we’ve given them one chance and they’ve taken."
Hearts midfielder Peter Haring took the man of the match award after running the show in the middle of the park but he has played down suggestions that the Tynecastle side can challenge for the title this term.
"I don’t know if we can challenge Celtic for the league," he said. "Today we could challenge them but the season is still young. We have take it from game to game and we know that next week will be very tough again and we need to play with the same energy as we did today and then maybe we can win again.
"Our game is not very difficult. We try to keep it simple as possible and we know exactly what our strengths and our weaknesses are. Today the message our coach gave us was to play with as much energy as possible and i think we did that quite well.
"I didn’t know what the atmosphere would be like but the atmosphere was massive. I have never enjoyed something like that before but I hope I will enjoy days like this many times again this season.
"To beat Celtic in front of a full stadium, at home, it was probably the most special day in my career so far."
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