Pat Bonner urges Brendan Rodgers to oversee Celtic summer overhaul

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Celtic were knocked out of the Europa League on Thursday night.

Pat Bonner has told BBC Sport that Brendan Rodgers has to perform a summer overhaul of his Celtic squad after the Hoops legend watched his old side get knocked out of the Europa League by Valencia.

Kevin Gameiro’s second-half striker gave Valencia a 1-0 lead on the night, and a 3-0 advantage on aggregate. Celtic had impressed before the goal, and were certainly on top before Jeremy Toljan was sent off just before the break.

Celtic have gone backwards in Europe since Rodgers took over, qualifying for the Champions League group stage in his first two seasons. This time around, they scraped through a Europa League group stage before losing.

Bonner gave his verdict after the match at the Mestalla and reckons Celtic need a big shake up of their squad in the summer, and reckons a lot of money will be spent.

“This summer, Celtic have to get rid of players and they’ve got to sign players because there’s going to be positions that they have to strengthen. It’s going to take a lot of work and it’s going to take money to do it,” Bonner said.

Plenty of Celtic players are out of contract in the summer, in the form of Mikael Lustig, Cristian Gamboa, Dedryck Boyata, Emilio Izaguirre and Dorus de Vries, and they may find their time at Celtic is up in a few months.

Celtic’s attention switches to completing a treble treble, starting on Sunday as they play host to Motherwell at Parkhead. They can go 11 points clear of Old Firm rivals Rangers, if the latter are beaten by Hamilton.