“WHAT do you want us to do? We played five at the back, what do you want us to play? Seven along the back? One midfield player and one goalkeeper and a striker?”

These were the words of Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers after the 7-1 defeat to Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League group stages a little under a year ago. Barring the obvious errors in his arithmetic, it was a defiant riposte to questioning of his tactics as the Scottish champions suffered a second humiliating defeat in which they shipped seven goals in Europe’s elite competition during his reign.

The other occasion, of course, was in the early days of his tenure at the Camp Nou against Barcelona. By any measure, the margin of such reverses are never acceptable for a club of Celtic’s stature and history, but at least they may have been understandable given the disparity of resources at their disposal compared to their opponents. The memory of watching Dorus De Vries clutching thin air as shots from Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez flew past the free transfer from Swansea are a chilling testament to that yawning chasm in quality.

But being thumped by the likes of Paris Saint Germain and Barcelona is one thing. Being thumped by the lesser lights of the Europa League is quite another. Perhaps that is why, with the passage of time, and perhaps even the diminishing quality of his squad, the Celtic manager may finally be able to accept that it is time for pragmatism to trump his attacking principles.

The level from the Champions League may have dropped slightly, but the challenge that will be presented when Celtic travel to Austria to face RB Salzburg will still be formidable. And it is notable that going into the tie, Rodgers seems less cocksure than he was even entering the lion’s dens of Europe’s elite sides. The question is, have Celtic learned from the chastening experiences on the continent?

“I say yes - I think it’s experience and experience always helps,” said Rodgers. “The level of opponent helps. When we picked up the defeats, they were heavy defeats against top quality opposition.

“I can probably look at myself as well. I’m a very attack-minded coach but the last thing I ever want to do is expose my players.

“I always feel the confidence you can gain from going against these teams and still looking to play your game can work to your advantage. But maybe I have to look at it and quell a little bit of that, just to ensure the players aren’t exposed. That’s the last thing I want to do.

“When you look at Paris, we actually started the game well, but the sheer quality of the opponent gets them through you.

“Away at Barcelona in the first year I was here, we were four down maybe going into the last half hour and that would have seemed like par for a game against them at that point in time. But we conceded late goals and it put a different slant on the game. But we look forward to showing the experiences we’ve gained.

“They’re still very good sides. The Champions League has all the glamour around it, but if you go through and look at the lustre of some of the teams in this competition, it’s a high level.

“Teams like Salzburg and Leipzig could readily be in the Champions League, but the draw was obviously a bit difficult and they didn’t make it.

“But we’ve worked hard to be in Europe so we’re looking forward to more really good experiences for us.”

The fact that Rodgers is examining his own role in the thumpings Celtic have received in the past is a noticeable step-change from his post-match comments even coming out of those brutal arenas of the continent’s superpowers. So, what has prompted this change of tack?

“I think in terms of where we’re at as a squad, playing against the really top opponents has proved really difficult for us,” explained Rodgers.

“Ok, this is a slightly lesser level in terms of opponent, but they are still going to be tough for us.

“I just think that maybe in some of the games when we’ve maybe gone out with the plan to play our game, we need the confidence to go and do that.

“But at a better level we’ve been punished in a way that you probably don’t get punished normally.

“It’s not naïve, because I felt that there were still moments in those games [against Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain] where we played well, but if we’ve had a couple of results of that magnitude, then I don’t want the players to, you know…

“It’s not that you sit back and defend and not attack, not at all, because I’ve always said to the players that it’s not about the possession, it’s about dangerous possession.

“That’s something we’ll really focus on, especially when we’re up against top-level opponents.

“It’s really about your possession being dangerous, and not always thinking that you have to dominate the ball.

“You can still dominate a game without the ball, but we have to make sure that when we do have it, we’re dangerous with it.”

The danger in the past for Rodgers and Celtic is that heavy setbacks on the European stage may seep into their form on the domestic scene, but the champions are currently suffering through a spell of comparatively stuttering form at both home and abroad.

Rodgers however is hopeful that his players have arrested the comparative slide from the previous standard they had set.

“I think the players are very stable,” he said.

“Yep, we’ve not got the flow of our game, but what I’ve seen in training and what I saw the other night, I can see those shoots of recovery coming back. Just the feel around it.

“We’ve had some good performances, but we haven’t hit the heights that we would have liked.

“The summer as we all know, it was all complicated, for many different reasons. But I now sense it getting more back to our feeling and what we are about. We saw parts of that the other night [against St Johnstone], and we want to continue on that vein.

“It will be a tough game for us next week, but it’s a great opportunity to show that our mentality has grown and developed.”