Manager: Our aim is to enjoy another good day at Paradise

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Celtic F.C.

·6 December 2024

Manager: Our aim is to enjoy another good day at Paradise

Celtic go into this Saturday’s Premiership clash with Hibernian looking to maintain their impressive form which has seen them establish a seven-point lead at the top of the table, and with a game in hand over nearest challengers Aberdeen.

It will be the third meeting against Hibs this season, with the Hoops having won the previous two encounters – a 2-0 win at Easter Road in the league and a 3-1 League Cup victory at Celtic Park.

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And on the back of a superb 1-0 midweek victory over Aberdeen at Pittodrie, Brendan Rodgers knows his side go into Saturday’s match full of confidence.

Speaking ahead of the game, the Celtic manager said: “What has been so pleasing over the course of the season is the variety of ways we can win. That’s always important as a team.

'Our ethos here, and our idea and our style is always to play fast, aggressive, attacking football, always with tactical discipline.'

“But you always have to respect that other teams are not going to allow you to do that all the time. They’re going to come and make it difficult for you like Aberdeen, who’ve done really well this season.

“They were very compact, tight, they break the game up so you don’t quite have your flow, so you then have to persist in your work, trust your possession and the speed of your game in horrendous weather conditions, and then look for those moments which might only be few and far between but you have to try to find them, and that’s what we did.

“So I think over the course of the season that’s been the real pleasing aspect of our wins, and none better than the game the other night to demonstrate that.”

Saturday’s match is the second of six games the Hoops will face in December, and over the next week they will also have a trip to Croatia to take on Dinamo Zagreb before a League Cup final at Hampden against Rangers next Sunday.

However, the Celtic squad are looking no further than the 90 minutes ahead against Hibernian and the need to take all three points.

“The focus is on Saturday. That was clearly on our mind after Aberdeen – get back, recover and then look to bring our game and be really pro-active in the game tomorrow. So I’m looking forward to it.

'We love playing at home, we love the energy – our last home game we were absolutely brilliant and our idea is to bring a similar game and that’s something I’m excited about.'

“I’m not going to say that you don’t look ahead. Of course, you do. That’s the nature of my job and I have to plan forward, but you always have to look to the next game as your priority and you need to understand what it is that you’re thinking about for clearly the Zagreb game, like I was when we had Ross County but we had Aberdeen.

“So you have to plan forward but that’s an exciting part of the job. It’s absolutely brilliant. I’ve got a great group of players that are hungry, they’re ambitious and they all want to play, which is great. If they don’t, they respect whoever is playing, they look after their colleague and then we’re all in to get the result.

“We’re all in a really good place and I think that’s also part of the rotation. If you don’t have the depth of squad, and the strength in your squad you’re maybe having to play players for 90+ minutes three times a week, playing them all the time and then you have a greater risk of injury.

“What we’ve been able to do is manage the minutes of the players and where there has been maybe a little niggle, we can take someone out, or if someone has played a lot more minutes, then we have that possibility to take them out. That’s the benefit of having a depth of squad.

“So I’ve really enjoyed that aspect of it – picking the teams to put out and giving that opportunity for some of them to have some breathing space.

“It can also depend on the game that you’re playing and what it is that you want from the game – that’ll decide who plays also.”