Brendan Rodgers has maintained that steely-eyed focus and determination to get the job done at the tail end of this season as things really start to come thick and fast at the Hoops gaffer and his team.
They’ve had to suffer and endure some considerable criticism on his return to the Parkhead club this time around, but with a good, solid few weeks now of strong results and performances, the Irishman is looking to pick up where he left off last time; namely winning trophies.
Whilst our rivals have slipped up majorly this last week, with five points from a possible six dropped to Ross County and Dundee respectively, he has insisted neither he nor his team will turn soft and allow themselves to start celebrating in a manner akin to theRangers when they crawled to a 3-3 “moral victory” over the Hoops at Ibrox a few weeks back.
Ahead of the club’s match with Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup Semi-final tomorrow, he said to Sky Sports Scotland: “Our focus has always been on ourselves and I made that point to the players. Irrespective of results and how it goes for other teams, we can only do our work.
“We haven’t won anything yet. You can’t soften up just because another team has lost or whatever because that’s irrelevant. You have to perform and get the result because if you come up against teams that are motivated they can give you a problem.
“So for us, we have to continually focus on out own performance irrespective of what happens elsewhere. We have to create our story and for that we have to work at it and that hopefully will be the storyline come the end of the season.”
It’s that manatra that Celtic must stay faithful to if we are to claim a League and Cup Double this year. As has been openly written about on this site and many others with our team this season, it’s been far from the expected standard which we have strived for continually and habitually in the past.
Rodgers will know that himself of course, but he will also know that there are many who had the wheels coming off the bus at Celtic Park and predicted he would be at a career dead-end, once Phillipe Clement and his intrepid team usurped him and the Champions.
It’s all hands on deck now as we go for the kill.
🗣️ “You can’t soften up – especially at this time – just because another team might have drawn or lost.”
Brendan Rodgers insists Celtic must remain focused on their own performances in the title race, despite rivals Rangers dropping points in a third consecutive game ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/pYG32vxrzC
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) April 19, 2024
Paul Gillespie
We haven’t been anywhere near our best this season. Most games we’ve only played for 45 minutes.
If we do manage to get over the line it will be more by luck than good management particularly on the recruitment front.
Starfeld, Jota, Turnbull, and Abada all sold for north of £40M yet we can’t even source a left back.
The real culprits, the Board, will be laughing all the way to their next set of bonuses.
I can already see the excuses for lack of recruitment in the summer:
We couldn’t buy the players we wanted because they were at the European Championships.
We couldn’t get the platers because they we on holiday after the European Championships.
Teams didn’t want to sell because they were trying to qualify for the Champions League.
Oops Dorothy, we ran out of time but we have sold Matt O’Riley who was in the Denmark squad for those European Championships.