BRENDAN RODGERS insists there will be no complacency with his Celtic team just nine games away from shattering their own world record of domestic clean sweeps.
That was set at eight in Ange Postecoglou’s second and final season just before the Irishman’s return to the Hoops hot seat in June 2023.
Rodgers had to be content with a league and Cup double in his comeback crusade and now he is looking for the club’s ninth treble this time around.
The pacesetting champions, 13 points ahead at the pinnacle, face St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park at midday on Sunday which will leave them with just six league matches to play.
They will also take on the Perth club in the Scottish Cup semi-final a fortnight on Sunday for the right to play in the silverware showdown against either Aberdeen or Hearts at Hampden on Saturday May 24.
Rodgers stressed there would be no let-up with the finishing tape in sight and said: “The players have been brilliant in training this week.
“It would be very easy, especially when we’ve had a few days of sunshine up here, to feel relaxed, but it’s anything but that.
“At this stage of the season, it really is about your focus and training with a big heart every single day and then you look to take that into the game at the weekend.”
The Hoops have a 10-0 aggregate score in their favour from their two previous meetings with St Johnstone this term – a runaway 6-0 romp in Perth in September and a 4-0 success at Parkhead three months later.
Rodgers, speaking to Celtic TV, continued: “The performance up there earlier in the season was so good. The level of our game, the goals – we had a goal disallowed as well, which I felt was a goal – but the focus of the team and the football was at a high level.
“We’re at the point in the season where it’s one game a week and we have to be really intense, we have to go and show our authority in the game and that’s what we intend to do.
“As always, we have to prepare for a tough match. The surface probably won’t be ideal, but we have to deal with that and look to bring our ‘A’ game.”
Daizen Maeda, who has just picked up his second consecutive Player of the Month award, has been unstoppable in a prolific and spectacular campaign to leave his manager purring with delight.
Rodgers added: “It’s a remarkable few months he’s had, but also a remarkable season. To be sitting on 30 goals, where primarily you’ve played as a winger, it’s only really since February we’ve put him in there.
“But he’s everything that I want to see in a central striker – his work-rate, his intensity and then, of course, the movement that he makes for his goals.
“He’s just so instinctive, but also his reading of situations is so good. And I think he’s improved on his technical level of his finishing and that comes with confidence, as well.
“So, when you see him play through the centre, you feel he’s going to get goals and create goals.
“I’m very happy for him.”
