Daizen Maeda of Celtic celebrates with fellow goalscorer Reo Hatate after scoring to give Celtic a 2-0 lead. Celtic v Kilmarnock, Scottish Premiership, 12 April 2025. IMAGO Photo Stuart Wallace Shutterstock
Q: How impressed have you been with the team? You see that response over the last three games. Scored 15 goals, conceded one freak goal. Just that response from the team when you send that message of what you’re wanting?
Brendan Rodgers: “Listen, everyone needs it. Just no matter how good a team you are or how good a player you are, every now and then you just need the reminder of the standard. And certainly the standard here at Celtic, that fell away below the required level when we were at St Johnstone. Again, the thing that grated on me was we had the chance to win it at home if we’d do our job on that. So that was also that double the frustration.
“However, the players have been brilliant since then. And that’s the job, that’s managing. Managing is the ability to teach players, inspire them and motivate them. And then you see obviously the players when they go out to the pitch, they’ve been so, so good. It was a great win last weekend. Played very, very well. And we’ve had a good week’s training. And we’re now coming to this game that we’re looking forward to playing in. But the response of the players has been excellent.”
PFA Scotland POTY Nominees. Callum McGregor is among the four nominees alongside Simon Murray from Dundee FC, Daizen Maeda and Nicolas Kuhn. Photo PFA Scotland.
Q: When you look at Callum McGregor and James Forrest, both history makers like yourself, how important are those players going to be on Sunday at Ibrox?
Brendan Rodgers: “Yeah, I think that in particular the guys that have been through it, and especially the Scottish, but having players from your national country means everything in these games for me. Because they understand what it’s all about. They’ve grown up with it. They’ve been through it. So they’ll know the importance of it. And like you say, those two players have been in numerous games and scored and performed at the highest level. So, they know what it takes to play in this type of game.”
Callum McGregor and James Forrest celebrate during the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup Semi Final match between St Johnstone and Celtic at Hampden Park on April 20, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Q: When you look at the previous games and Celtic dominating possession, how important is it just to stop those little small errors when you’re dominating possession in that game and just keeping the ball?
Brendan Rodgers: “Yeah, I think for us it’s the start of the game. We need to start the game in the way that we would want to. Like you say, our last game at Celtic Park, we didn’t start the game well. We got done very early on with a corner, so that gave the theRangers something to hang on to. And then we switched off at a throw-in and very quickly a two-nil down. The response in that game was very, very good. Come back and then the whole second half, we were the only team that was going to win it.
Hamza Igamane of theRangers scores his team’s third goal during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and theRangers at Celtic Park on March 16, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
“And then we made an unfortunate slip and a mistake and they finished really well. But these games, there are errors in them and there are mistakes in them. What you know is 100 per cent you can’t be perfect in them. But we also know that we’ve won there before and won there a number of times. So, we know our game and what our game looks like. But always in these games you want to be at your very best in order to win and play well.”
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