Brendan Rodgers has made it clear that he will continue challenging his Celtic squad with fresh targets as the Hoops close in on a stunning season…
Following Rodgers’ men 3-1 Scottish Premiership win against Hibernian at Celtic Park on Saturday, the Hoops matched the 106-goal record first set by the Irishman’s team during the famous Invincible campaign of 2016/17.
Rodgers and his freshly-crowned champions are now aiming to surpass Martin O’Neill’s 2003/04 side, which netted 64 goals at home, with the current squad having scored 61 so far.
Celtic have one final Scottish Premiership game in Glasgow’s east end against European chasers St Mirren on Trophy Day this coming Saturday to match or surpass that record.
The four-in-a-row Scottish champions are just eight goals shy of eclipsing the record for the highest league goal tally in a single season, set by Ange Postecoglou’s 2022/23 Treble winners, who scored an astonishing 114 goals.
Rodgers said: “I think I’ve been telling the players it was one less than 106! I have been setting mini targets for them, of course, going into this block of games, we had items that we wanted to achieve with the goals scored.”
“I think there was a record number of goals at home, which was 64 in a league season, I think, when Martin O’Neill was here in 2003/04, so we’re now on 61.”
“There’s one game to go, and so we’ll be hungry to make Trophy Day special and also during the week, I’ve given them targets to achieve beyond winning the trophies, and so you see the hunger in the team in order to achieve those.”
🗣️ “He’s had the opportunity, now the really hard work begins to try and sustain that”
Brendan Rodgers on giving 17 year old Sean McArdle his first-team debut in Celtic’s win over Hibs ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/OKypsFlGLg
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) May 10, 2025
Rodgers also believes that competition for places ahead of this month’s Scottish Cup final versus Aberdeen will prepare his side well for the showpiece event at Hampden.
The 52 year-old outlined: “I want to target to arrive at the Scottish Cup final with as many of the players, got minutes in their legs, and then that gives us an opportunity to choose the team and a bench to win.”
🍀 Goals from Nicolas Kuhn, Adam Idah & Reo Hatate ensured Celtic’s comeback as they beat Hibs 3-1 ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/nKJTwlPV1w
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) May 10, 2025
Next up for Brendan Rodgers is Aberdeen at Pittodrie tomorrow evening where we are likely to see a vastly different Celtic line-up from the team that started against Hibs on Saturday.
Conor Spence
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