Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon is looking to kick on from Sunday’s clean sheet against Hamilton Accies as the Parkhead side prepare for games against Suduva and Rangers.
The 90 minutes without conceding a goal was the first time Celtic have achieved such a feat for seven games, something that has been particularly galling for the Scotland internationalist.
“Keeping clean sheets has been something we’ve been very good at over the last two seasons,” said Gordon.
“We had been going along at something like a 50 per cent success rate when it comes to keeping clean sheets and that is an incredible ratio in any league anywhere in the world.
“We need to get back to doing that consistently.
“We’ve done it the last few seasons and, yeah we’ve had a blip the last few weeks, but we can definitely get back to doing that again.”
Brendan Rodgers claimed in the aftermath of the 1-1 draw with Suduva last Thursday night that Celtic had to take greater pride in their defensive work.
And while Gordon was reluctant to divulge what was said in the dressing room in the immediate aftermath of the game he acknowledged that there has been a softness about Celtic’s backline that needs to be rectified.
“I think we have just been giving up a lot of easy chances recently and that’s disappointing,” said the keeper. “Teams haven’t had to work too hard to get their goals against us so far this season.
“We have dominated games and played quite well at times and got a clean sheet against Hamilton. But too often we have shot ourselves in the foot by giving up easy chances so we have to stop that happening.
“We know where we have been going wrong.”
Celtic dominated against Suduva last week but couldn’t come out of the game with a more emphatic scoreline, something that has been another source of concern for the Parkhead side.
“It’s been the story for us the last few weeks,” said Gordon. “We have had the majority of the ball, not turned it into goals and found ourselves losing goals at the other end from not many chances given up.
“So that has been frustrating and something we need to sort out and get back to consistently doing what we have been doing over the last two seasons. The quality we have in the team we are going to dominate most games and dominate the ball.
“It’s about turning that into goalscoring chances for us and concentrating at the back and making sure we are not giving up the few chances we’ve been losing goals from.
“Every chance we give up seems to go on target at the moment and that’s just the stage we are at.
“We have to focus and get through it and get better for what is a very big week in prospect.”
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