Willie Collum calls Dundee United but blanks Brendan Rodgers

Q: How is Greg Taylor? Is he aware of what’s coming for the next weeks and months ahead?

Brendan Rodgers:  “It’s like lots of things in life. Until you actually experience it, he won’t know. We’re delighted for him and Laura. They had their baby daughter, which was so nice for him. I was saying to him, my daughter turned 29 today herself and as soon as I spoke to Greg, it took me back to that moment. I said, you have to cherish every moment, because she’s 29 today and it’s just gone so fast. I said to him, make sure you enjoy it as well, because the time goes so fast as a parent. He’s obviously happy and the baby’s healthy and mum’s healthy, so it’s great news for him.”

Q: In terms of the left-backs, Jeffrey Schlupp has come in with an immediate impact. What have you made of him? Have you talked to him about his future yet or is that too early?

Brendan Rodgers:  “I’ll have a chat with Jeffrey towards the latter part of the season. It was the case of him coming in and settling and getting to understand how he plays. I think we can all see he has that Premier League physicality and quality. He’s a guy that’s a top professional. That’s why he’s been in over a decade in the Premier League, because you have to look after yourself. You’ve got to have the right qualities, not only as a player but as a person. We knew what we were bringing in. I’m really happy for him, because he’s settled into the group really well now. Now he has a feeling for how he plays and what the role is. It gives us two really strong players to finish the season in that position.”

Q: How pleased are you with the kind of hunger they are showing at the moment? You look at the lead at the top of the table, you make the temptation to take the foot off the gas a wee bit, but you look at the game the other night, a goal late on, they went and got another one. Callum was just saying that they weren’t very happy with their own performance throughout the course of the game, despite winning 5-1. How does that say about the culture in that group?

Brendan Rodgers: “We’ve tried to set a standard of performance and I think the scoreline was fantastic. When you come off against one of your rivals, one of your big rivals up here and you can win 5-1 and still be not overly pleased with elements of the performance, then it shows you the standard that we demand. That’s a good thing, because you can always improve, even in a 5-1 win. That’s what we’ve spoken about. The whole point was to get to this point of the season in the best place we possibly could. We have 10 games to go, having the lead that we have, having already won a cup, having shown progress in Europe, we arrive now into this stage of the season where virtually from Saturday we’ll go into one game a week.

“So the freshness, the ability to train, to work on things becomes a great advantage for us and that’s all we can ask. The players have really set a top standard. It’s been relentless for the last three and a half months. In the last three months we’ve played over half a season’s games in three months. I think it’s 23 games or something we’ve played. Because of the nature of how we play and the level we want to play at, they’ve been absolutely magnificent. I can’t speak highly enough of them, but we’ve still got a big job to do. We have the advantage in the league of course, but for me it doesn’t mean anything. We have to go into every game to win and to perform at the highest level we can.”

The Brendan Rodgers Media Conference continues on the next page…