ANGE POSTECOGLOU has told his Celtic players that their performance against Bodo/Glimt was nowhere near good enough, as he defended the changes he made to his team as they crashed out of the UEFA Conference League to Bodo/Glimt.

The Celtic manager made six changes to his side for the game in Norway, resting the likes of captain Callum McGregor, as his men failed to overturn a 3-1 deficit from the first leg of the tie at Celtic Park.

The much-changed team fell to a meek 2-0 defeat at the Aspmyra Stadium, but Postecoglou says he had little choice but to rotate his side given their hectic schedule and with a crucial Premiership fixture to come this Sunday against Hibernian at Easter Road.

He was disappointed though in the fringe men who did come into the line-up for failing to reach the levels he expected, believing he had put out a strong enough side to win the match and progress through the tie.

“It’s why we have a squad,” Postecoglou said. “We can’t compete in all these tournaments without it.

“We got through the first half of the year, but we just got through it, because we had an enormous amount of injuries.

“We play at midday on Sunday and you know how late we are going to get back from Norway. After playing on an artificial pitch.

“If we expected players to back up in those two games, then I’m not doing my job in looking after the players in the right way.

“The team we put out there was good enough to play better than what we did and that’s the disappointing thing.

“But, at the same time, we have got to understand that’s why we brought players in, to make sure that we have a strong squad to compete.

“It’s not where I want to be [as a team]. It’s where they have to be. We just didn’t perform.

“We have been pretty consistent this year in bringing a certain level of intensity and intent in our game and we haven’t for these two games. When you’re playing against good opposition in Europe, you get punished.

“That’s probably our two least effective performances in Europe this year. Even when we lost to Bayer Leverkusen 4-0, I still think we showed more intent than we have in these two games.”