Brendan Rodgers Media Conference – Here I am stuck in the middle with you

Q: As you sit here at the start of a new season, how are you feeling about everything—the club, the team—heading into the new campaign?

Brendan Rodgers:  “When you do all your preparation work over the pre-season, it’s always built towards this moment. The players are really well prepared; we’ve worked very, very hard over the course of pre-season. This is my third pre-season since I’ve come back, and the metrics of the team and the squad that we’ve had are at their highest over the course of the pre-season. So, in terms of the guys that are here, they’ve worked so hard. Everyone at the club has put together a fantastic pre-season program for us, and now we arrive in these last couple of days ready for Flag Day, which is a special day for us.”

Q: Last season, you had a really successful pre-season as well, and you spoke often about the way the team just carried their form through into the season itself and had such a successful season. Is that something you can see happening again with the pre-season you’ve had?

Brendan Rodgers:  “I think, as you say, last season we continued with that momentum that we’d gained. But it’s never guaranteed. You know, I’ve done many a pre-season now, and some of them haven’t been so good, and then you arrive, and you can make a great start to your season. But of course, you’d rather things go smoothly. All I can say is that from our work here when we first came back, to our travels to Cork, and then on to Portugal, and then finally Lake Como, the preparation has been so good. Everything from the facilities, we can’t have any complaints. So, it’s been really good and now sets us up for the weekend.”

Q: Talk to us about your aims for the season?

Brendan Rodgers:  “The aim as a Celtic manager is always to dominate every competition. We obviously qualify for the Champions League which we want to arrive at, and we want to be really competitive in that competition if we arrive there. That was our idea last year; nothing’s changed. You add to that the pressure here at Celtic is always about not just winning but winning in a style of football that is the pursuit of the teams here—to play attacking, aggressive football. So, it’s not just about winning, it’s how we win, which is important for us.”

Q: First up is St Mirren. You know what you get from Stephen Robinson’s teams. He’s changed the squad a bit as well, hasn’t he? What are you expecting from them?

Brendan Rodgers:  “Very much the same. Watching the game pre-season, watching their games and studying them, Stephen’s an outstanding coach and manager. He’s done a really good job with the teams that he’s been with up here. We saw it in the last game of the season. They’ll probably be low on the pitch, making the spaces very tight, so we have to be fast, we have to get the ball moving quickly, be really dynamic with and without the ball, and counter-press really well to stop their counter-attacks. They are a big, athletic team and will prove, I’m sure, a really tough opponent for us. So we know we have to be playing well to get the result.”

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