Brendan Rodgers explains what he’s told Luis Palma to do to improve at Celtic

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Celtic’s USA Summer Tour is giving Brendan Rodgers to run the rule over his first-team squad and some young academy players over the course of a two-week period.

We discussed last week how the Celtic manager had taken nine academy players on the trip and how young Colby Donovan impressed in the 4-0 win over DC United.

However, there are senior players on the tour with a point to prove after not faring as much as they would like to have done for Celtic last season.

And Brendan Rodgers has shared how he has set down a challenge to Luis Palma after the Honduran suffered some ‘inconsistent‘ form in Celtic’s double-winning season.

Rodgers hails Palma’s ‘great quality’ but with a caveat

Palma enjoyed a very good spell in the first half of last season after his summer move to Celtic. But after December, the Honduran seemed to struggle as he lost form and, eventually, his regular starting spot in the team.

So to improve that, Rodgers has set Palma a challenge heading into the new season and it is one the winger must take on if he is to win back his starting place in the Celtic team for the upcoming season.

Rodgers said [The Herald Sport print edition page 7], “Luis is a very creative player, his strengths are to create goals and score goals.

“We’ve asked him to run more without the ball and he’s started to do that over time with us.

“He can either dictate with penetration or by making the last pass. He had a few fantastic moments tonight.

“He brings great quality and he loves his football, you can see he is playing with joy.

“When he came in he was adjusting to a different culture, style and intensity, which is always a challenge, but I think he did that very well.

“He had 10 goals and some of those ones were important as well.

“He also had a lot of assists which is pretty good for a wide player. Getting him to be more pressing towards the ball will elevate the technical side of his game.

“Hopefully we can continue to progress him after a good first season.”

As Rodgers points out, Palma did score ten goals last season but eight of those came before the turn of the year so it is clear that consistency was an issue for the 24-year-old.

Now, to be fair to Palma, he did already have five fixtures under his belt for Aris before he joined Celtic so there could be an argument that fatigue may well have played a part in his drop in form.

However, now with Celtic for a full pre-season, the Honduran will be under no illusions that he must produce better performances and more often for Rodgers as the Hoops boss looks to make leaps on the European stage next season.