We’re even fitter for purpose, says Gord

CRAIG GORDON knows it will not be easy for Celtic to enjoy the same level of success as they did last season in the coming months.

But the goalkeeper believes the Parkhead club are in far better shape going into the new campaign than they were 12 months ago when Brendan Rodgers had just arrived.

“We are a step ahead of where we were this time last season,” he said. “In fact, a good bit ahead. So we are in a good place. It is now down to doing the hard work and making sure that physically we are ready to go.

“To have gone through last season, and do what we did, was an incredible achievement. Even now, maybe we still don’t know how good an achievement it actually was. Maybe as time goes in it might sink in a bit more about how much we achieved in that first year.

“But now we go again, and the manager has made it clear what he expects in pre-season. We’ve actually got some time pencilled in for later on this week to deal with that. Not to consign it to the past, but to talk about it, and work out how we’re going to move into the future.

“You can’t start again, because you want to take the confidence and the good things from that into the new season.

“But it is about guarding against complacency, and against thinking that we’ve already achieved something. We now want to go on and improve as a team and do something even better.”

Gordon added: “We’re straight back into it. I’m looking forward to having another go at it and the boys are flying in training and looking really good.”