Brendan: Rest is history for my Bhoys
BRENDAN RODGERS warned his Celtic stars tiredness is no excuse after watching mistakes almost hand Hamilton a late lifeline.
After letting Hibs battle back from two goals down to snatch a
point on Sunday, Celtic survived three secondhalf scares that could have seen them suffer the same fate last night.
After stretching their domestic unbeaten run to 69 games, Rodgers admitted fatigue will naturally creep in. But with a gruelling December programme of nine games in 28 days, the manager warned his side tiredness will never be an excuse for letting standards slip.
He said: “You have to expect something but one of the chances came from us. It was loose play by Simunovic being short on the pass back and the boy should maybe do better.
“But listen, it’s not an excuse for us. We know we’re in a run of games and it’s a really tight schedule – but that’s been since June.
“Since our first pre-season game we’ve been training, playing, training, playing right the way through to now.
“We have to be ready to work hard and press the game and when we have the ball look after it – and in the main the team did that really well.
“Of course Hamilton could put some risk into the game towards the end but we saw it through.”
Olivier Ntcham fired Celtic ahead before Danny Redmond levelled. But two goals in as many minutes by James Forrest and Scott Sinclair just before the break were enough to see Celtic through.
Pick of the bunch was Ntcham’s classy finish and Rodgers added: “He’s developing very well, as I would expect.
“He’s a highly-gifted player. The first goal is a brilliant finish. He’s got really good technique, pace and awareness and it’s just about him getting used to the number of games. He’s developing very well.
“We made some changes tonight, tried something slightly different and I thought the players worked it well. It was a good win.
“Hamilton have had some very good victories this season. So we knew this was going to be a real test for us, especially on the back of a good performance but not such a good result against Hibs.
“We lost a soft goal from our perspective. So not so pleased with that. But we reacted well and that’s what this team is good at.
“We have created a mentality that whatever happens in a game you don’t get down on it, you just go again.
“We had a two-goal advantage, similar to the weekend, so we talked about learning lessons, could we create more, squeeze up the pitch and the players did really well.”
Accies boss Martin Canning said: “That’s probably the most clear-cut chances we’ve created at Celtic, even including the game we won here a few years back.
“We made five changes and the team didn’t become weaker. So while the result is a negative we can take a lot of positives from it.”