Q: Whether it’s that position or others, is it a nice benefit of having the cup final where everyone is playing for those places? You’ve obviously won the league a couple of weeks ago and then last weekend’s fixture probably speaks for itself but now in these next few every player’s got that motivation?
Brendan Rodgers: “I think that over the course of the next three games, in particular the next two games, there’ll be lots of changes. Players that I want to give an opportunity to, players that deserve the opportunity to play, the opportunity to recover some because this is our 55th game or something like that this season so we’ll be playing a lot of games. Yeah, certainly over the course of the next week there’ll be changes in the team.”
Rangers substitute Neraysho Kasanwirjo runs on to the pitch to throw items off the pitch that appear to have been thrown into the Celtic penalty area during the second half of the match. theRangers v Celtic, Scottish Premiership, Ibrox. Sunday 04 May 2025. Photo Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock
Q: We were just chatting to Viljami, Brendan, about the off-field unsavoury incidents at the weekend targeted by missiles whilst on the pitch and had to move away glass bottles or whatnot. What’s your reflections on that as the manager of players who are targeted in that way on the pitch?
Brendan Rodgers: “I think it’d just be the same as any coach or manager. It’s clearly not nice to see and hopefully it can be addressed and hopefully players’ safety is paramount and can be looked at.”
Q: Is that a worry that that’s not the first time it’s happened in this fixture at Ibrox for you? Things that we’ve seen before, staff being targeted as well, is that a worry?
Brendan Rodgers: “It always is but listen, I’m pretty sure theRangers will be looking at that. They don’t want to be associated with that type of behaviour. It’s not great but they will deal with that I’m sure.”
Hibernian manager David Gray arrives prior to the Premier Sports Cup match between Celtic and Hibernian at Celtic Park on August 18, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Q: Just a word on Hibs, the turnaround that David Gray has done at the club and what you’re expecting from a team who will be fighting for their life the last few games to get to that third spot and that European spot?
Brendan Rodgers: “Yeah, I’ve been very, very impressed. I think that it was obviously very difficult for David and his team and for the club right through until November. It’s actually been like a reverse of Aberdeen really. Aberdeen had that brilliant start and then the second part of the season for Jimmy and that has been a little bit more challenging. For David it was the reverse of that, challenging in the first part. Since he changed his system in November, they went back five, and that structure has really, really helped the team. The players you always clearly could see they believed in him as a coach and as a manager but weren’t getting the results at the beginning of the season. But then they had and then it went on a fantastic run. And in all fairness, when we played them back in the cup game a number of weeks back, they arrived in that moment in a really, really good place. However, we played a really good game that day and we know we need to play another really good game because, like you say, they have targets they want to achieve in these last three games. We also have targets. We’re at home also and we want to bring our level of game and it should be a fantastic football match.”
