Celtic seal play-off spot after late own goal spares blushes against Young Boys

Brendan Rodgers returned to Celtic with a stated aim of making the playoff round in this season’s Champions League. Rodgers can tick that one off, after Young Boys were eventually seen off on an energy sapping Celtic Park occasion. The winner, an own goal from the visiting captain, Loris Benito, came as Celtic threatened to run out of ideas. They will now head to Villa Park and the conclusion of this phase with further matches guaranteed. Rodgers’ faith in what he could deliver here has been vindicated. Celtic are worthy of further opportunity against the elite of Europe.Young Boys arrived in Glasgow with such dismal European form that Celtic’s only apparent danger was complacency. The Swiss side had slipped to six defeats out of six. Things have not been much better on the home front; Young Boys are ninth in their domestic league. Those who insist Celtic therefore enjoyed a favourable draw in this fresh format – Slovan Bratislava were earlier visitors here – ignore points claimed from Atalanta and RB Leipzig. The Scottish champions were outclassed 7-1 in Dortmund, a fixture that was their clear outlier. The challenge in this penultimate game of the league phase was to enjoy the position of clear favouritism.