Ntcham is hitting top form, says Rodgers
BRENDAN RODGERS believes Olivier Ntcham is beginning to show why Celtic paid Manchester City £4.5million for his services. The French midfielder struck his fifth goal of the season with a spectacular volley last night to open the scoring and help the champions extend their unbeaten domestic record to 69 games. Danny Redmond levelled for Accies before James Forrest and Scott Sinclair struck to keep Rodgers’ men five points clear at the top of the table. ‘I think he’s developing very, very well, as I would expect,’ said Rodgers. ‘He’s a highly gifted player, the first goal is wonderful technique and it’s a brilliant finish. ‘He’s got really good technique, good pace, good awareness and it’s just about him getting used to the number of games. Now he’s getting that consistency and adapting to everything
since he’s moved to here and you see his quality tonight was very good. ‘He’s developing very well.’ Rodgers warned his players that fatigue isn’t an admissible excuse as their hectic December schedule gathers pace. Celtic face a further five games before the winter shutdown, bringing the total number of matches to nine they will have played this month. But the Northern Irishman feels his squad is big enough to cope with such demands — and doesn’t envisage any issues over tiredness before the year ends with the visit of Rangers on December 30. ‘Since our first pre-season game started we’ve been training, playing, training, playing right the way through to now,’ said Rodgers, who believes Dedryck Boyata will be fine for Sunday’s trip to Tynecastle after having to leave the field last night through injury. ‘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. ‘We have to be ready to work hard and press the game and when we have the ball look after it — and I thought in the main that the team did that really well. ‘Hamilton could put some risk into the game towards the end but we saw it through and got the result. You have to expect something, but one of the (Hamilton) chances came from us. ‘It was loose play by (Jozo) Simunovic being short on the pass back and the boy (Rakish Bingham) should maybe do better.’ Hamilton manager Martin Canning said: ‘We performed well. You know when you come here they are going to have the lion’s share of possession. You’ve got to be disciplined and we were. ‘In terms of clear-cut chances in a match against Celtic, that’s probably the most we’ve created — including the game we won here a couple of years ago.’