Brendan Rodgers is looking forward to a noise like no other at Celtic Park when he experiences close up his first Old Firm game on Saturday.
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Talking about that label he said: “When you are Celtic and you play every game, especially at home, it is what is expected of you”.
“It’s exactly the same scenario (as semi-final). But if we can do that then we are more than confident we can get the right result”.
“That’s a lot of lads to come in and gel”. It always takes time; this season has just taken a little bit longer. All we could do was try and make sure we did the job on a Saturday to make sure that the following season or in two seasons’ time, we were going to have the opportunity to play these fixtures again.
“We are asking them to play with a team that dominates possession normally so you might have a player come from a team who play with 40% possession to us who play with 65%”.
“You will have seen in terms of performances that it has been different – so this is a good measure of where we are at”.
“He’s not even in my league — he’s nowhere near the level of player I am”, said the ever-prickly Barton.
“It’s a special game and I’m really looking forward to it”. But Miller does not feel they have anything to prove so early in the campaign.
‘What we say inside that room is obviously private, but we know ourselves what we can achieve and we know the quality in the squad.
Celtic have undergone major changes since then, mostly in the dugout where Brendan Rodgers has stamped his authority after Ronny Deila appeared to lose his.
“Apart from the skill, I think he’s got a really good football brain”, said Nevin. As we said before the Scottish Cup semi, it’s about what we do and we know we have the game to hurt anybody. “And if we do that, we will be in a good place”.
The Old Firm adversaries will clash in the Scottish Premiership for the first time since 2012 this weekend with the Bhoys the favourites to take the honours in the first meeting of the season.
“This is what Scottish football has craved for the last four years with Rangers returning to the top flight Not just for these fixtures, and I include Hibs in this too as I’d like to see Hibs back in the top flight too”. We went into that game full of confidence and belief in what we do.
New signing Moussa Dembele would be the likely replacement but the 20-year-old has only started one league game so far this season. “We’re not running away from wanting to be favourites”.
“They have strengthened and are better but there is no doubt we have strengthened”.
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Not only was he coming to Rangers for a second spell but he was doing so as a former Celtic player.
