Brendan Rodgers was word-perfect with his post-match comments yesterday after his side defeated Hearts 3-0 to open up a six points advantage at the top of the table, ahead of theRangers playing against Kilmarnock today. Nothing short of a win will do for Philippe Clement’s side and the pressure will be well and truly on until they have the points secured.

If Kilmarnock take anything from the game that that would open the door for Celtic too secure the Scottish Premiership title this coming Saturday with a victory in the Glasgow Derby at Celtic Park in front of a 60,000 home support.

“It’s felt it’s getting back to what I want it to be. A bit of the norm.” Brendan said post match, as reported by Sunday Post. “I said before the first six months were a challenge for everyone and everything. But now you start to see a bit more of what a Celtic team of mine should look like. And still with a lot of work to do to get it to that point. But it’s certainly heading in the right direction.”

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Callum McGregor at full time during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Hearts at Celtic Park on May 04, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

The Celtic manager has been over the course of these title run-ins before and his players were humble in their post match acknowledgement of the Celtic support who provided incredible backing for the team from start to finish yesterday afternoon.

“Eighty per cent of it now is mental. Physically they are in a really good place. This stage it’s all about mentality. You can see mentally we are in a really good place.

“Take nothing for granted, keep our composure, we have a lot of work to do in the week, get our plan ready and then next Saturday we can have a bit of fun.”

“These are big games at this time of the season so you want big contributions from your best players and I thought our top players were great. The quality of the goals, the composure, the penalty, we had other chances to score. It felt like a great Celtic day,” the Celtic manager said.

Brendan also praised the support and made a point of stating that despite the excitement of the performance and the win, his players remained humble and did not over celebrate, as nothing is won yet.

“The energy rolled from the stands down onto the field and hopefully the fans were happy with that,” he said. “They were happy. I don’t think we were over-celebrating. Celtic-Hearts is an important game with four to go in the season. I think there was a happiness in how we played and performed that gave the crowd a great energy.

“You saw the players walking round at the end, nice and calm, taking the applause but also being respectful that we still have a job to do. A big job. But they did a big job today and we can now get ready. I’m so looking forward to it next week.”

Next up at Celtic Park is theRangers and the 60,000 supporters will certainly do their very best to give the team and the manager every encouragement they can. It’s going to be extra special.

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