Rodgers made his return to Celtic last month following the departure of Ange Postecoglou to Tottenham Hotspur. The Northern Irishman had a hugely successful first spell at the club between 2016 and 2019, winning all seven domestic competitions available to him and guiding the team through one ‘invincible’ season, and he inherits a squad that has won the Scottish top flight for the past two years. Beale crossed Old Firm swords directly with Rodgers while he was part of Steven Gerrard’s Rangers coaching staff and also knows him from spells at Chelsea and Liverpool. The 42-year-old is looking forward to coming up against the ex-Leicester boss once more and says his presence is good for Scottish football.

“It is good for the league that Brendan has come back because he is a good coach,” said Beale. “He is someone I am familiar with all the way back to my time at Chelsea and Liverpool. It is good to see him back but I have to just concentrate on us. He is a good manager and he will look to strengthen. My job is to make sure we are as strong as possible.”

With the expectation from all at Rangers to be more competitive in the title race, Beale says he excited by the challenge of closing the gap on Celtic. “I’m looking forward to it,” the Englishman continued. “The fixtures come out, it makes it reality, we’ve an interesting one straight away at Killie – a tough place to go live on Sky. So there’s lots to look forward to. When we come back from our trip [to Germany in pre-season] we will know a couple of days after who we are playing in the Champions League. So there’s a real excitement about the start of the season. In the time since coming back into the club, the points total in the league was pleasing. Now we get a chance to start from the beginning of the season and hopefully these new players coming in have improved us. I think they have but the most important thing is showing that on the pitch.”

Why Michael Beale welcomed Brendan Rodgers' Celtic return as he lays down Rangers gauntlet

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