Daizen Maeda: “He’s everything that I want to see in a central striker,” Brendan Rodgers

Q: One of the, certainly amongst supporters and many others, one of the criticisms is that a team plays the same opponent four times a season. Do you buy into that, that that can perhaps kill the enjoyment of that league?

Brendan Rodgers: “Not kill the enjoyment, because there’s still always something to play for. I wouldn’t necessarily say it kills the enjoyment, but of course if you’re playing a team home and away, then it’s arguably better, but I can’t say in all my experiences up here that it’s killed the joy.

“We will go to St. Johnstone again and we’ll be ready for that and the supporters will be ready for that, excited for the game. I think if I had a choice, of course you would play a team home and away, and that would be that, but the league is the way it is at the moment. It’s nice that there are certain items of the game being looked at, but at the moment it is what it is and we have to deal with that.”

Q: Where do you adhere to ultimately when it comes to the game, whether it’s at European level, world level or domestic level? Finances ultimately dictate?

Brendan Rodgers: “Yes, I think that’s how the game has pretty much evolved over these last numbers of years, and none more so than now. That’s obviously paramount in the game, but I think you can’t ignore the players and what they go through on a physical level. People say, listen, they earn enough money, they should get on with it, but that’s not the point. Not everyone does, and it’s more than that as well. The pressures now that the young players are under and the spotlight that’s on them and what they have to deal with, it’s a tough challenge.”

Q: In terms of the next few weeks, it’s obviously an important period for you guys. Do you keep your foot down to the finish line?

Brendan Rodgers:“Yes, that’s the mentality. I think we had a really good response last week. I felt our game was at a really good level against a good Hearts team that have been consistently doing really well over the last number of months. Again, we’ve come up in the last number of weeks with a few systems that have been different to what we’ve come up against before. We had to try and figure that out against a good Hearts team because they played the same as theRangers.

“With some time on the training field, we were able to figure that out and work it well. Play with the speed, play with the mobility, the rotation, the technique that we wanted in the game and scored three fantastic goals. We want to keep delivering a level of performance. Like I say, the finish line is in the distance for all teams with the games, but for us, we know where we want to be at the end of the season. Each game now, that’s what our focus is on.”

Continued on the next page…