MURTY WILL BE BETTER FOR IT
players solved. Coping in that situation was really pleasing.”
The Hoops boss will rotate and rest some players and has told his squad to forget about sticking their feet up until Hampden next month.
Rodgers said: “When you win a semi-final and play how we played and made your supporters happy, you can enjoy it for a day or two. And then very quickly you’re getting ready for the next game.
“We still need to work. There’s a balance. Obviously we’ve got some time to the next weekend but either way we can’t just stick the sombrero on. “There are hard games leading in to the Cup Final. They’ll get a few days but will be ready
for the next game.” BRENDAN RODGERS reckons Graeme Murty has gained more managerial experience in seven bruising months in charge of Rangers than he’d pick up in a decade in the dugout anywhere else.
The Celtic boss admitted he has sympathy for the under-fire Ibrox manager – despite being responsible for his week from hell.
Rodgers’s side’s 4-0 Hampden hammering of the Light Blues in last week’s Scottish Cup semi-final sent them into a tailspin with punters protesting and players threatening mutiny.
Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace have been suspended, Andy Halliday and Daniel Candeias raged with the boss after being subbed, while Alfredo Morelos and Greg Docherty had to be held apart on the pitch.
Murty, who looks set to step down at the end of term, was swept up in the fallout and Rodgers says the instability has undermined his authority.
Rodgers said: “I have empathy for him of course because up until last summer he was a guy that was a budding young coach who was building his career really well.
“Then he had the opportunity to go in to manage on a temporary basis and through the good work he did, he was given the opportunity through to the end of the season.
“He will have gained so much, however it goes for him at the end of the season. In seven or eight months he’s done about 10 BY MICHAEL GANNON years’ learning – that’s going to set him up for the rest of his career.
“Things will have happened on and off the field, management and coaching, you never learn unless you’re in there.
“There is a huge professional pressure and expectancy. What he will have learned is it is about managing expectations – of supporters, of boards, of players, of staff. It won’t feel like that now because the spotlight is shining on you but he will be better for it whatever happens.”
Rodgers was sacked as Reading boss early in his career and admitted it’s the tough times that make a manager stronger.
He said: “The experience there helped me coming here. It is going through it and having those adverse moments too. Otherwise there is no learning.
“It is like us – we lost 7-1, we lost 7-0. You have to then manage that to ensure your players can go again and they are not going to have the ill effects of it. That is management.”
Murty has been undermined from all angles with a club statement suggesting he will be replaced in summer.
Rodgers said: “Graeme’s situation is different. But you have to have authority.
“The team has to know who is in control. Where it is different is he is only temporary until the end of the season. Of course that is difficult and it is difficult for the players because they are unsure.”
BRENDAN RODGERS NEIL: PARTY CAN WAIT