STUART Armstrong last night defended Celtic’s record in Europe and insisted the Parkhead club had made huge strides forward since Brendan Rodgers arrived as manager.

Rodgers has been savaged by many former players and pundits in the wake of his side’s heavy 7-1 loss to Paris Saint-Germain in France on Wednesday night.

But the midfielder, who sat out the meeting with Unai Emery’s star-studded side, still feels that progress has been made since Rodgers replaced Ronny Deila last year.

The Scottish champions can still qualify for the knockout stages of the Europa League if they can just draw with Anderlecht in their final Group B match in Glasgow on Tuesday week.

Armstrong believes that is a vast improvement on the days when they were getting beaten at home by Norwegian minnows Molde.

“Everyone is entitled to their opinion,” he said. “But Brendan Rodgers has shown what a quality manager he is for 18 months. We’re on the inside and we have to deal with these things as they happen.

“We are under no illusions how good they were. When we played Barcelona last year they got to seven and it was a different level. They were absolutely magnificent.

"They also beat Bayern 3-0. They really are a European giant. If they don’t go all the way and lift it then I’ll be surprised.

“It’s completely different from back then when we didn’t win a game in our Europa League group. We had three tough qualifying games against teams that are desperate to get to the Champions league. It’s hard even to get there.

“If you take out the PSG results out of it then the home game against Bayern and the great win at Anderlecht shows that we are making strides.

“As I say, they could go all the way in that competition so we need to keep the result in perspective.”