Five things we learnt from Celtic and Manchester City’s 3-3 thriller

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Manchester City are good, but there is still room for improvement

Manchester City have made an astonishing start to the season under the guidance of Pep Guardiola, winning all ten of their opening fixtures in all competitions, and quite rightly the new manager and his side have received plaudits for their early season form and their aesthetically pleasing approach to the game. It was assumed that City would continue to steamroll their way through the opposition, but Celtic highlighted on Wednesday that there is still plenty of work to do in the blue half of Manchester.

The central defensive partnership of Kolarov and Otamendi looked incredibly fragile whilst the high-pressing game adapted by their opponents forced City into making a number of unusual errors and a sense of vulnerability that we have not seen so far this season. John Stones will undoubtedly return but you sense that Guardiola still needs to invest in a world-class partner for the young England international if Vincent Kompany’s injury woes continue.

Brendan Rodgers is slowly re-building his reputation

For a man that came within one Steven Gerrard slip of leading Liverpool to the Premier League title, Brendan Rodgers has received a substantial amount of criticism from the English press in recent years. However, the Northern Irishman is slowly re-building his reputation in Glasgow and the early signs suggest that he is succeeding in retaining Celtic’s dominance in Scotland whilst making them more competitive in Europe.

He has been shrewd in the transfer market – the signings of Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembélé look inspired – whilst the existing core group of players; especially Scott Brown and Tom Rogic, look reinvigorated and inspired. Whilst it looks unlikely that Rodgers will lead Celtic into the knockout stages of the Champions League it is clear that he has the Scottish Champions moving in the right direction.