BRENDAN RODGERS yesterday revealed that the Celtic players who reported back to training this week are the fittest he’s seen at this stage since he became manager in 2016.
“This is the fittest the players have come back since I’ve been at Celtic,” Brendan said.
“They’ve come back very fit and in these opening few days have shown a great level. That helps with what we’re trying to do.
“They have a really good base fitness and I am happy with that. Now we can develop that.
“The message is to push even harder again. You can always improve. We will look to develop our football and physical fitness over the next few weeks, that is key.
“The focus in the early phase is all on Champions League qualification.”
Rodgers will take his squad, still missing the four players at the World Cup, to Austria next week where they will play in three warm up matches before the serious business begins in 10 July when Celtic will play Alashkert in the first leg of the first qualifying round for the Champions League.
If you don’t know much about Celtic’s opponents then you’re in the same boat at the Celtic manager.
“I don’t know much about them. I will by the time we play. These are tricky ties. Whether it’s heat or travel, you just have to prepare as best you can with the objective to qualify.”
Brendan also had summer signings on his mind. He has Odsonne Edouard back as a Celtic player this time and Lewis Morgan looks set to make an impact having finally joined up with the Celtic first team squad. But it was central defence that Rodgers seemed to want to talk about.
“Everyone talks about bringing players in, more centre-halves,” Brendan noted.
“I don’t think anyone would be happy unless we had Billy McNeill there! But we have young guys who are developing and will get better.”
The rumour factory yesterday had Celtic in talks in London with John Terry. Paddy Roberts having knocked back the chance to join Leicester City is now a problem that Manchester City would like ti resolve. His transfer value will decrease if he sits things out and as is always the case in these situations, the player has a great deal of power.
Maybe, just maybe he is looking to come back. Certainly we had good reason to say a week or so ago that Edouard would be getting the Number 7 jersey but that hasn’t happened. Commercially it would have made sense to sell jerseys so maybe there’s something in it…wishful thinking probably.
Celtic did make a £10million bid for Roberts last summer and thought that they had reached a deal with City only for their manager to change his mind at the 11th hour and a year loan was hastily put in place as an alternative.
As for John Terry, if he can help get us through to the Champions League then it would be money well spent, especially with Boyata considering his options due to the profile he is getting at the World Cup. If Celtic get an offer of £7million from Lazio as reported, you would expect that to be accepted.
