“I am at the stage now in my career and my life where I do not need to bite my tongue,” Brendan Rodgers

Q: Is the message that at this particular point in a gruelling festive season when the games are coming thick and fast, it really is the onus is on everybody to pull together and be moving in the one direction, you do not need schisms or distractions, it needs to be all channelled?

Brendan Rodgers:  “I think I have said that a number of times in my time here and it is just reinforcing really that the unity is the strength of this football club. As a manager and as I said, my priority since the day I walked in here has always been the players and the supporters, then that is the connection which is always most important. That consistency there, then of course you get great results. So I think we have seen that and every now and then, like I said, it is to observe, it is not to tell anyone what to think, say or do, but certainly when we are together we are a much stronger club.”

Q: How much do the players take from positivity from the stands? We talk about it all the time, but does it really have an energiser or give them something extra?

Brendan Rodgers: “100 per cent, it is everything. If you are in a really positive ground with a great energy, then that can give you so, so much. You can get into your flow, everything is just much more positive. I have walked in stadiums outwith here where you play passes in the game and the team will recognise. I remember my time at Swansea where you would make a backward pass because you could not go forward. The crowd could recognise what was happening. They clap, they square the pass, then you play a forward pass and it changes the point of attack. It is recognising the game and that feels good for the players. They do not see that as a negative, it is to start a new attack.

“Because everyone wants to play forward, everyone wants to play vertical football, but it is impossible to do it for the whole game. So when there is that positivity around the stadium and that recognition of that, then of course that really aids the players on the pitch and that is where they gain the energy from. I repeat, the players get an amazing energy from Celtic Park.

“I have said it so often, especially this season, we love playing at home. We love being there, so it is not a big issue at all. It is just an observation from a moment in the game. We move on and we and the players will get an incredible support, as we always do.

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