BRENDAN RODGERS has ordered his Celtic players to continue their relentless approach as he prepares his team for the crucial encounter against Aberdeen at Pittodrie tomorrow night.
The Hoops go into the intriguing tussle with the opportunity of opening a seven-point gap over their opponents with a game in hand.
Rodgers’ champions have won 12 out of their 13 league outings and drawn the other when they allowed the Dons to claw their way back into the contest at Parkhead in October after holding a two-goal interval advantage.
Untypical of their form since the crusade kicked off, they took their eye off the ball and Jimmy Thelin’s men hit a couple to grab a point.
NO SLACKING…Brendan Rodgers will continue to drive Celtic forward. Image courtesy Sky Sports.
Kasper Schmeichel has conceded only four Premiership goals since taking over from the popular Joe Hart in the summer and the north-east club have netted half of them. Ross County, with a penalty-kick, and Hearts are the two other teams who have managed to get the ball behind the Denmark legend.
Rodgers has told his players to remain on the front foot after their 5-0 romp against Ross County at the weekend and insisted: “I never say complacency, but contentment is something you don’t want to have.
“You don’t want to be content and happy. You want to be constantly improving and developing.
“That’s what we want to do as a club. In the last couple of windows we’ve been able to energise the squad and bring it to a level that allows us to work as we do at the moment. We have to look beyond that to the future.
“There was obviously a goal setting process back then [in debut season 2016/17). Now we are pretty clear it’s more individual work with players and targets.
“It was no real secret back then… one was a treble. I’m pretty sure we achieved them all!”
NET GAIN…hat-trick ace Daizen Maeda is congratulated after making the final scoreline 6-0 for Celtic as Aberdeen keeper Dimitar Mitov sits this one out.
The Irishman, speaking to the Daily Record, continued: “I think the consistent level of the team has been really high. That was a long time ago and you learn, as a coach, from those experiences.
“But these players can write their own history. That group was brilliant for me, but the challenge is to create more historical moments as we go along.
“It took time to get going, but it’s been a really high level the past couple of months and we need to keep it going.
“It’s more taking them on the journey and the story about what we want to achieve and finding the various ways to stimulate and make sure they are ready going into each game.
“You can never lay off that. Consistency is always the challenge when you play so often. You have to perform. A draw is no good, there’s always the demand to perform well and win.
“That is a challenge physically and mentally. We have players who are accustomed to it and some who are new to it. That’s our job to help them through it.”
Rodgers added: “There is such a long way to go. If we win the game, okay, we get a bit of a gap. It’s always nice if you can go to one of your rivals and put in a good performance and get the points.
“We can only worry about ourselves. You can’t worry what other people think. That’s our notion going into every game. It’s to work even harder than we did on Saturday.
“Every game is an opponent for us to impose our style on the game. We know it will be tough, the crowd will be very vocal behind their team.
“But we’ve played in difficult grounds and atmospheres and coped very well.
“I expect us to go and create the game and give Aberdeen problems from the first whistle.”
The Dons were unbeaten until they ran into the Parkhead juggernaut in the Premier Sports League Cup semi-final last month.
Daizen Maeda thumped in a hat-trick as Celtic ran amok to win 6-0 to book a spot in the showpiece showdown against Phillipe Clement’s Ibrox outfit at Hampden a week on Sunday.
For the time being, though, Rodgers and his players only have Aberdeen on their minds.
