Brendan Rodgers fumes at ruling as Celtic duo miss out on Scottish Cup semi-final

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Celtic are on course for the Treble after booking their Scottish Cup final ticket on Sunday at Hampden.

Effectively, only Aberdeen stand in Brendan Rodgers’ way of winning yet another Treble in Celtic colours when the duo meet on May 24.

Celtic thrashed St Johnstone in the semi-final, with some big names on the bench, including Nicolas Kuhn, Jota and Jeffrey Schlupp.

What the Celtic Park faithful might not have noticed is that there were eight substitutes named by both managers compared to the nine used during the Perth fixture in the Premiership on April 6.

This was discussed by the Celtic manager before the Scottish Cup semi-final win, and it’s fair to say that he wasn’t a happy man.

• READ MORE: The SFA could pile more misery onto St Johnstone after their fan’s Scottish Cup conduct vs Celtic

Why Maik Nawrocki and Johnny Kenny missed out on Celtic’s Scottish Cup semi-final squad

Maik Nawrocki and Johnny Kenny were left out of Celtic’s Scottish Cup semi-final squad, despite being ‘brilliant in training’, according to their manager.

Rodgers was annoyed that, in Scottish Cup matches, he is only allowed to name eight subs because that meant leaving Nawrocki and Kenny at home, as he told BBC Radio Scotland.

The Irishman did acknowledge that he is blessed to have such a ‘fantastic’ squad, but wasn’t pleased that he had to leave out such players because of such rulings.

“It’s always difficult,” said Rodgers about leaving quality players on the bench. “It’s the job of the manager, you have to deal with that.

“I look at two players who aren’t even in the squad. We have a man less on the substitutes bench. We don’t quite get why you go from eight subs in a Scottish Cup game, then you have nine in the league.

“We lose out two players in Johnny Kenny and Maik Nawrocki, who are absolutely brilliant in training, working so hard, and they aren’t even on the bench.

“I am fortunate that I have got a fantastic squad, who are pushing, but the players know, if they are on the side, then they have to be ready to come in and impact the game.”

Nawrocki has done nothing wrong

Is there a more unlucky man within this Celtic squad? You always wondered what Nawrocki was doing in training that resulted in Rodgers not selecting him time and time again.

But then, injuries hit Celtic’s backline, in came the Polish star, and he produced some outstanding displays.

Yet fast forward to the present, and it’s back to square one for Nawrocki, who isn’t even making the matchday squads again, and you wonder if this is now the end of the road for him at Celtic.

Rodgers said himself that he is doing well in training, so that can’t be an issue, then he performs well every time he plays, so why continue to keep him out? Baffling.