CELTS’ CAPTAIN HOOK
Rodgers warns Brown and Co they will have to work very hard to regain Bhoys’ starting shirts WRITING ON WALL FOR ‘WELL BOSS AGAINST GERS
SCOTTISH PREMIERSHIP Livingston v Celtic Almondvale Stadium, Today, 12.30pm
The Hoops midfield has been on fire in the 33-year-old’s absence, winning four straight matches.
And with Callum Mcgregor and Ryan Christie earning all the plaudits for their midweek masterclass against Bundesliga title chasers RB Leipzig, the manager (below) insists the standards have been set for anyone wanting a first team place. Brown is still understood to be a couple of weeks away from a top team return after limping out of their victory over Hibs three weeks ago.
However it’ll be his form under scrutiny as much as his fitness.
Rodgers said: “We want all the boys back, but this is what you want as a coach – the guys who have come into the team, Scott Sinclair looks back to his level, Ryan coming in has been like signing a new player so it’s brilliant.
“But I don’t forget what guys have given me for two and a half years. Scott Brown is an amazing player, a big personality so it will be great when he gets back. Olivier Ntcham is a top operator too. But what this shows is that the squad now, you can’t come off your game.
“And now what we’ve got is a bunch of players playing at a really high level.
“The guys behind that are going to have to work very hard to affect that – but we need them all.
“They’re setting the standard
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now, though, which is good.”
Rodgers singled out Mcgregor and Christie for particular praise after Celtic’s Scots excelled in Europe.
He said: “I think you can be very proud watching the Scottish players, playing at the very highest level. For me it’s not about jumping and smashing into tackles, it’s about blocking and intercepting.
“Blocking the lines of pass. Our rules are simple – if you give a good player time he’ll play, but let’s see how good he is when you get right up to him and put him under pressure.
“Guys like Callum, Ryan and Tom Rogic, players you would essentially say are No.10s, they showed they can do the dirty work.
“That’s what you have to do collectively. How they pressed the game they smothered the ball gave them no time and then had the quality to play. You see the level Ryan has gone to. “He needed a moment and for me that moment came in the Hearts semi-final where he grew into becoming a Celtic player.” The standard of opposition will drop today when they face Livingston away at lunchtime – but Rodgers insists their own standards won’t falter. play-off game in 2015 when Robinson was assistant to Ian Baraclough. But he insists the key to changing that is getting his players to believe. The Fir Park boss said: “I played against Steven numerous times. I actually scored against Liverpool for Luton when he was playing, so I have a picture on my wall of that. He’s in the picture, and so is Jamie
He vowed: “Whether we’ve had good bad or indifferent results in Europe, domestically these boys have been a credit to the club. they’ve never switched the engine off. We never allow them to because the next game is the most important one.
“Of course it won’t be as free flowing and slick as it was against Leipzig because we’re on an astroturf pitch against a team who’ve started the season great. It’ll be a tough game – but we’ll be ready for it.”
Now what we’ve got is a bunch of players playing at a really high level Rangers v Motherwell Ibrox, Today, 3pm
Carragher with his head in his hands!
“They won 5-3, by the way, I keep that bit quiet. I also played against him for Northern Ireland when we beat England 1-0 and at Anfield, where he got a hat-trick as Liverpool won 5-0, so you could say he’d the upper hand in the games.
“He was at the top of the tree as one of the best there’s been.”
In the dugout, Gerrard has yet to start climbing the branches though, and Robinson added: “You have to forget the badge and the 40,000 people. You’re just playing against 11 players on the day and they can have good and bad games.
“I firmly believe that if we play as we have in the last two games we can give any team in the league a good game.
“It’s a test for our young squad, we’d four academy players on the pitch against St Mirren, but we have to manage the game and that’s something we have to learn to do a bit better. We’ll have them ready.”