IT was an interesting to peruse the Celtic line-up (on Twitter, approximately three days before it was announced) for what was the formidable task of garnering anything from a daunting trip to Germany to take on RB Leipzig.

Injuries of course meant that Brendan Rodgers was somewhat hamstrung when it came to selecting his team, but the inclusion and exclusion of certain players seemed to hint at where the Celtic manager sees his priorities this season.

Filip Benkovic for example is “being managed” according to Rodgers, so he started on the bench to ensure he would be available for tomorrow’s semi-final against Hearts at Murrayfield. Scott Sinclair couldn’t get in the side ahead of Lewis Morgan or Ryan Christie. The whole line-up was one that you might expect Rodgers to field if he was facing up to a bottom-six Scottish Premiership side at home, not the fifth-best team in the Bundesliga away.

Celtic went into the match with one win and one defeat to their name in the group so far, hardly an irreparable situation in terms of the group. But one wonders if Rodgers saw something in his side during their last European outing in Salzburg that told him chasing qualification against the strength of the Red Bull-backed sides was a fool’s errand given the strength of his team and his squad at present, and one that would do damage to his quest for yet another domestic treble given the relative strengthening of competition on the home front this season.

Rangers are also competing in Europe of course, but they appear to be a different beast this season under Steven Gerrard to the shambles that preceded him, while Hibernian, Kilmarnock, a currently off-colour Aberdeen and even Livingston are all likely to provide a stiff test. And then we come to tomorrow’s opponents, Hearts.

Craig Levein has assembled a formidable outfit in Gorgie, one that currently tops the Premiership standings by six points to Celtic, albeit having played a game more than the champions.

They are flying at the moment, and make no mistake, they fancy themselves to end Rodgers’s clean sweep of the domestic prizes since his arrival north of the border. That is less likely to happen in the league, but tomorrow’s Betfred Cup semi-final at Murrayfield surely presents the clearest and most present danger to Celtic’s hogging of the silverware in some time.

It is understandable then that in the cold light of day, Rodgers decided not to risk depleting an already weakened Celtic outfit further by chasing a result on the continent that was always unlikely even in the best of circumstances.

Better Celtic teams than the one that took to the pitch at the Red Bull Arena on Thursday night have gone away from home in Europe to face weaker sides than RB Leipzig and come back empty-handed, so coming away without adding any more names to the injury list and limiting the damage to two in the goals against column was perhaps the best Celtic could hope for.

Of course, even that strategy didn’t go exactly to plan, with Jozo Simunovic and Cristian Gamboa picking up knocks on the night. With those two looking doubtful for the Hearts match and Dedryck Boyata already suspended, it leaves the Celtic backline looking threadbare at best.

But Rodgers wasn’t to know that, and his choice of team rather hints that while Celtic’s over-arching strategy is to make an impact on European competition and try to stay in the Europa League beyond Christmas, perhaps the strength of squad at his disposal isn’t adequate to fight on four fronts.

The blame for why that is the case of course lies with both the manager and the board, as a summer spent mainly squabbling in public about transfer strategy rather than securing some much-needed defensive reinforcements saw them blow the chance of Champions League football against a bang-average AEK Athens side.

So, three again might be the magic number for Celtic, but if another domestic treble is to be secured, then something may have to give. And right now, it looks as if that will be the Europa League.