Brendan Rodgers is seeing improvement in his Celtic side and thinks there is more to come as we move forward.
The Hoops seemed to really be finding their feet prior to the international break. Our performance in the defeat to Lazio was one of our best this season, while the team were also excellent in the 3-1 win over Kilmarnock.
After a two-week break from club action, we are now set for Tynecastle this weekend. That Hearts clash is the first of seven Celtic matches in 21 days that will also include a double-header in the UEFA Champions League against Atletico Madrid. Rodgers can’t wait to get going again.
He told The Herald: “After this international break, you look at the fixtures and the close proximity of them all through to November and it’s quite tight. But it’s exciting.
“They are getting used to my way. In the last spell of games there, the performances were getting better, and the Kilmarnock game was more like the intensity and the speed we would want. We are in a good place, but we can never be complacent. There’s still a lot of improvement we can make.
“There was a wee bit of drama earlier on [this season], I’m led to believe. But experience says you have to win games, and everything settles.
“Coming back into the players to work with them, it was always going to take a little bit of time in terms of how I want a few aspects of their game to improve, and we have players out that make the football look different.
“But they are starting to come back now, and players are starting to understand their roles. They are a lot clearer on what they are being asked to do, so the football looks clearer.”
I thought Celtic were terrific in our last game against Kilmarnock. Sure, 3-1 maybe doesn’t sound like a total blow-away performance, but some of the football we played was a joy to watch. It was certainly a whole lot better than some of the displays we saw during that “wee bit of drama” that Rodgers referenced.
Luis Palma, Reo Hatate and Matt O’Riley were the standouts against Killie and you feel that those three are going to be huge over the coming weeks too.
It’s an intense old period before the November international break. The team haven’t played much midweek football in 2023 but they will be doing so over the next three weeks.
The domestic games should take care of themselves. It’s on the European stage where we’d all absolutely love to secure that big breakthrough win.
In other news, Brendan Rodgers clears up Daizen Maeda Celtic concern
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