Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Murty’s challenge for Gers
RODGERS IS EYEING A DOUBLE TREBLE
GRAEME MURTY has challenged Rangers players to win every game and look back at the end of the season with no regrets.
The Light Blues can go within six points of leaders Celtic if they defeat Hearts at Ibrox ahead of the champions’ visit to Pittodrie tomorrow.
A win against the Craig Levein’s Jambos would mark only the second time this season Rangers have won four games in a row and fuel excitement over a title challenge.
Murty has laid it on the line to his top stars, who have won only six of 13 league matches played at Ibrox so far this season.
He said: “I have told the players we don’t want to be sitting at the end of the season looking back on opportunities missed or points dropped.
“We want to actually go and accelerate into the end of the season. If we take some things we have been doing recently and enhance them and improve them, we will put ourselves in good shape.
“I wouldn’t say our home record is unacceptable, but what we have to do is to put ourselves in a position where we can win every game, home or away.
“We’ve managed to do that recently but we need to be more consistent in our understanding of what we’re trying to achieve.
“We need to be more patient and have a better structure at home sometimes.
Teams aren’t going to come to us and be open and expansive – we have to understand that and so do our fans.” BRENDAN RODGERS says Celtic will now be supercharged in their quest to make history.
The Parkhead manager has urged his troops to use the one major positive aspect of their European exit to land iconic back-toback Trebles.
The squad returned from Russia last night after their continental adventure was ended by Zenit St Petersburg full of drive to step back onto the gas on home soil.
Tomorrow’s top-of-the-table crunch with Aberdeen kickstarts a spell which could see the squad pen more folklore.
Having won the Treble last term, Celtic have a chance to become the first-ever Scottish side to do it in successive years with the League Cup in the bag and a place in the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup secured.
Rodgers admits it’s now the full focus and said: “That is a huge motivation for us. To be into February in all four competitions was a great achievement for us, I felt. It has been tough for us this year in terms of injuries and key players being out, but we have a great opportunity now to go on and the next possibilities are the league and the cup.
“To do that would bring yet again a historical season for us.
“Our focus is now very much on that game on Sunday and we have other important games between now and the end of the season, it is a really exciting finish for us. Now we have a clear run domestically. From
June of last year we have been virtually playing every other week.
“The squad has had injuries.
“The players have shown great fight right through until this stage, so now we have a clear run at it domestically and we will be looking to finish the season very strongly.
“It was disappointing to go out of Europe, but there are still lots of lessons learned.
Rodgers kept his team in Russia after the loss to Zenit to prepare for Pittodrie. As opposed to taking a lengthy flight home after the game, Celtic stayed in St Petersburg on Thursday night for training yesterday morning before flying back to Glasgow yesterday evening.
Rodgers says his troops will be ready for the Granite City and added: “Our plan was to stay overnight in Russia, have a good night’s rest and then get back and do our preparation to get ready for that game.
“That’s the result of having a successful season. Right up until that point, we were in four competitions and doing very well. “Going out is a disappointment but on reflection over the course of the European campaign there have been many good moments for us, but of course many disappointments too for us to improve on.”