Brendan Rodgers has called on his squad to avoid the pitfalls of arrogance and complacency ahead of the Scottish Cup final despite entering the Hampden match in an ‘ideal condition’.
The Bhoys have had just over a week of superb celebrations after clinching a third successive Scottish Premiership title at Rangers’ expense.
Now, the season will culminate with a showpiece final on Saturday as Rodgers and his team aim to turn that title success into a double.
Celtic are unbeaten against Rangers this season and are understandably favourites to lift another piece of silverware.
However, Rodgers has insisted his team will prepare for a tough match and won’t take this challenge lightly.
Brendan Rodgers on Celtic vs Rangers final
Speaking in a pre-match media conference, the Celtic boss said [Sky Sports]: “You can never have that arrogance. It’s not how we work. We have a humility in how we work. We respect every opponent we play whether it’s Rangers, Raith or whoever. We have to prepare for the game.
“We come into the game in the ideal condition. I don’t think there’s any doubt on that. We’ve been on fire the last few months and playing really well. We had challenges at the start but over the course of the season and into the pressure moments, the players have been absolutely superb.
“We arrive having won the league in a really, really good way, playing well, so we come in a real good condition for the game.”
Philippe Clement tight-lipped on squad fitness
Celtic suffered their fair share of injury issues throughout the season but thankfully everything came together at the right time towards the end of the campaign.
That’s all in contrast to over at Rangers where Clement didn’t even want to discuss injuries or potential team selection in his media conference heading into the weekend.
Clement said [Rangers Review]: “I don’t want to say too much about the squad. This is the final and decisive game so maybe we need to take some risks with players that we normally don’t because there is a season coming after. I don’t want to get into who could start or not. I did it all season, every three days with you guys. This one I don’t want to speak too much about that.”
It’s clear who the happier of the two managers is right now. Let’s hope that dynamic is the same come the full-time whistle on Saturday.