Should Brendan Rodgers’s Celtic team fall short against Rangers this weekend, he may need a bucket of ice to cool off his burning ears.
The Northern Irishman, however, disputes that this potential scenario is a result of long-standing flames licking at the club due to conceding ten points while Philippe Clement’s Rangers 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 resulted in the club’s first back-to-back top-flight defeats in a decade, leaving Celtic striving to avoid three league losses in any calendar month since 1994.
While second-placed Rangers trail Celtic by just five points with two games in hand, Rodgers maintains that recent setbacks which led to his team relinquishing their lead in the title race have created a false impression. Or the necessity for Celtic to make a statement in Saturday’s derby, as they did in winning the season-opening encounter at Ibrox in September.
“I think if you read or listen to everything in the media you would feel we were in constant crisis mode here. But I don’t think that way at all,” said Rodgers. “It’s another great game for us. We have been a little bit inconsistent. When we have been good, we have been really good in games. But we need to find that consistency. For me, there is no difference. I just think it’s maybe how it gets reported and how it is out there. Our focus is to play the football that we want to, and see where it takes us.”
While he admits to not being much calmer going into his 15th iteration of this unique confrontation, Rodgers maintains the “excitement” is “always there.” He compares it to experiences of Liverpool facing Manchester United and Everton, stressing that he never gets tired of it.
