Delighted Rodgers hails his fantastic ‘infrangibles’

● Celtic manager celebrates first league title and takes a sideswipe at those who belittle the quality of the Premiership

It was there on his first day at work a year ago, a gleaming presence at Celtic Park on the day he was formally unveiled as manager of the club to an ecstatic and expectant gathering of supporters.

But while it was already Celtic’s property, the Scottish Premiership trophy remained deliberately untouched by Brendan Rodgers until yesterday afternoon. Rodgers revealed he didn’t want to hold the silverware until he felt he had earned the right.

When the full-time whistle blew at Celtic Park on the 2-0 win over Hearts which completed a record-breaking, undefeated league season, no-one deserved to get their hands on the prize more. “It’s quite heavy,” smiled Rodgers as he reflected on a campaign which saw his transformational work inspire Celtic to new landmarks of 106 points and 106 leagues goals, bettering the records set in the Martin O’neill era. Rodgers even dipped into a thesaurus to find a fresh definition for his ‘Invincibles’.

“The word I said to the players before the game was infrangible,” he said. “That was the word I used – and you writers and academics will understand what it means. Stuart Armstrong [pictured] understood it!”

Even amid the celebrations in the east end of Glasgow, however, Rodgers was keenly aware of a perception which exists further afield of the current standard of Scottish football and which some would use to try to diminish the scale of his players’ achievement.

“It’s very unfair, because it’s all relative,” Rodgers said. “I was at Chelsea when they won 8-0 at Wigan in the last game of the season. It’s a fantastic league but they won 8-0. It’s all relative depending on what country you are in.

“The only thing that Celtic lacks is money. If you are talking about massive clubs, this is one of the great clubs of the world. It’s not in the league with the finances but, if we were, then this thing would explode. “I remember something Packie Bonner told me when he was at Reading. There are not too many challenges like playing for Celtic, when you have to win every week. “I could go as Liverpool manager to Manchester United and draw and it’s a good result. We can’t do that here. Every single game, there’s a pressure and an expectancy. So it’s all relative.

“We are on a great winning cycle but it’s tough to continue, then you add the Champions League to that. But to square the circle, it’s all relative. Juventus have won six in a row. Look at Bayern Munich. They have more money than others but you still need to win it. It doesn’t take away from this remarkable achievement.

“It’s a great feeling for everyone. It brings an end to a league campaign that is very tough. Sometimes, being down in England, you look up and see teams playing three, four, five or six times a season here.

“But that brings an opportunity to look at the game different tactically. Again against Hearts today we played against a different system and we had to find a way to come through that. The players did that, especially in the second half when I thought they were fantastic. I’m really