Celtic shut down talk of 'constant crisis mode' ahead of Rangers clash as Brendan Rodgers makes media claim

Celtic boss is convinced his team are going to get better

If his Celtic team should come up short in their hosting of Rangers this weekend then Brendan Rodgers will require a bucket of ice to treat his burning ears.

The Northern Irishman, though, would dispute this potential scenario is owed to flames long having been licking at the club through the concession of ten points while his Ibrox counterpart Philippe Clement’s side have been near faultless in the Premiership over the Belgian’s ten-week tenure. The six points thrown away in consecutive games across early December did not just result in the club’s first back-to-back top flight defeats for a decade. These reverses now leave Celtic bidding to avoid three league losses in any calendar month since 1994.

Second-placed Rangers trail Celtic by just five points with two games in hand, yet Rodgers’ maintains recent setbacks that have led to his team relinquishing their advantage in the title race have created a false impression of the situation Celtic find themselves in – or the onus on them to make a statement in Saturday’s derby, as they did in winning the pair’s season-opening confrontation at Ibrox in September.

Brendan Rodgers insists Celtic remain in a "good place" despite recent losses that have allowed Rangers to close in on them at the top of the table. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

“I think if you read or listen to everything in the media you would feel we were in constant crisis mode here. That’s what I feel. But I don’t think that way at all,” said Rodgers, who sought to extend a sense of poise to the injury loss of integral central defender Cameron Carter-Vickers in burnishing Stephen Welsh’s credentials to deputise for the US international. “It’s another great game for us. I think going into that last game we were off the back of not a really good result. We had performed well against St Johnstone but didn’t get the result. This time we are going in with a good feeling [following the wins over Livingston and Dundee].

"I think the big games always give you the chance to impose yourself. We have been a little bit inconsistent. When we have been good, we have been good in games. But we need to find that consistency. It’s just levels, isn’t it? I think it’s just levels. But for me there is no difference. I just think it’s maybe how it gets reported and how it is out there. For me we are still in a good place as a team. We are going to get better. We will hopefully improve the squad. We’ll see where we get to at the end of the season.

“These games speak for themselves. We can go in and perform to a really high level and that will give us a chance to get the result. Not really, no [could it be seen as defining]. Especially when you get another couple of games to play. We have already won at Ibrox so whatever the result is tomorrow, and we want to win the game, there are still many more games to play. Our focus is to go and play the football that we want to, and see where it takes us.”

Rodgers says he won’t be much calmer going into his 15th iteration of the fixture he has suffered only one loss in, and that will pit him against a sixth different Rangers coach than for the first of his opening spell seven years ago. The “excitement” is “always there” for a confrontation he rates above experiences of Liverpool facing Manchester United and Everton for uniqueness. “You never get tired of it,” he said. “That’s for sure”.