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Rodgers bans dressing-room talk of ten-in-a-row and insists Celtic focus on this season’s title

BRENDAN RODGERS admits he has banished all talk of ten-in-a-row from the Celtic dressing room, urging his players to concentrate solely on securing an eighth successive title.

The champions kick off their latest defence at home to newly-promoted Livingston on Saturday with manager Rodgers (right) determined to maintain the standards that have brought back-to-back Trebles during his two years in charge.

He knows that many Celtic supporters are becoming increasingly fixated on the pursuit of a new Scottish record of consecutive title wins but insists his players must focus on the immediate hurdle.

‘You hear everyone talking about ten in a row but for me, the players and the coaching staff it is eight in a row,’ said Rodgers. ‘Forget the other two — you have got to get the eighth. ‘The demands at this club mean that you enter every domestic competition to win. ‘Qualification for the Champions League speaks for itself, that is also a huge task for us. ‘Domestically, you always have to try to win every competition you are in and that is not easy because you can have a bad day, something can go against you or you just do not play well.

‘That is why I tip my hat to the players for how they have performed. It is exactly the same idea this year, there is a hunger to improve.’

There is a new foe on the opposite side of Glasgow in the form of Rodgers’ former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, who has taken the manager’s job at Rangers.

Just as with Mark Warburton and Pedro Caixinha before him, Gerrard has gone into the season backed with significant funds to improve his squad.

The profile of the new man himself has also raised expectations among the Ibrox

support but Rodgers refuses to countenance a two-horse race, insisting he is equally wary of the challenge posed by last season’s runners-up Aberdeen and also quotes Hibs, Hearts and Kilmarnock.

‘I have not seen Rangers under Stevie,’ he continued. ‘There will be an expectation there. Stevie will come in and know how he will want to work but I think the league will be strong.

‘Aberdeen always do well, Hibs, Hearts with Craig (Levein) and Kilmarnock under Stevie (Clarke).

‘So I don’t think you can speak in isolation about a challenge. I think it is going to be really competitive and every team will be hard to beat.

‘We have to try and find a way to beat everybody.’

So dominant have Celtic been over the past two years that Rodgers’ toughest task may be to maintain the requisite levels of desire among his players.

‘You have to have players that are hungry and that comes through your recruitment,’ he admitted.

‘Once you get the right types in, then you can really have an effect on them. All of our players are hungry to succeed. Domestically, they have been brilliant these last two years.

‘They have the hunger and this is an era where they can really put themselves in a really successful period.

‘The beauty and the exciting thing for me is that I can see it developing all the time.

‘From the manager down, we never have a lazy day. It is intense, relentless with the work we do. But the culture is in place now. The players want to succeed, they want to win things and they want to get better.

‘You need to have a vision. You need to have certain values in how you work and you have to bring in certain types — but the biggest thing is to create a culture. If you create the right culture, that will hopefully bring the rewards.’