BRENDAN RODGERS didn’t get his way on the post split fixtures but at least now knows the games he has ahead of him between now and the end of the season. There is only one question mark remaining and the Celtic manager will be looking to remove that himself on Sunday and add one more fixture to the list – the Scottish Cup Final.
And looking back on the performance on Sunday, the manager realises that the team will be expected to up the level of performance. Rodgers is no fan of the artificial surface – believing the he has yet to see a decent game on the plastic – so leaving Hamilton with the three points was simply a matter of job done.
“Once we got the goal early in the second half, it wasn’t the best spectacle for supporters, and I don’t think a lot of games are on that surface,” Brendan admitted.
“It was just a case of completing the job. It’s difficult on the surface for the speed of the game, and it was probably a bit of a bore for supporters.
“Sometimes you tend to think you can score five or six against 10 men but it’s not always the case, and we’ve seen that against ourselves. It was important to get the victory and we did that,” Brendan said.
Tom Rogic, Michael Lustig and Stuart Armstrong were able to sit out that Hamilton game and as the boss looks ahead to Sunday’s semi-final he knows that he will have the luxury of having a big selection headache with so many players now available.
“It’s great,” Brendan admitted. “You want the availability of the players as often as you can and this season it’s been broken a lot with various injuries compared to last season.
“Every season is different but they’re all back now and we’ve tried to give as many of them as much game-time as we possibly could, so they’re ready and available for this stage of the season.”
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