Brendan Rodgers praised the attitude and the mentality of his Celtic players as they backed up their win over Rangers on Saturday with a routine triumph over St Mirren, re-establishing their eight-point advantage at the top of the Premiership heading into the winter break.
The Celtic manager had warned against a lull in performance after the highs of the weekend victory at Celtic Park, but his players were at it from the off in Paisley as Daizen Maeda fired them in front just 54 seconds into the match.
Further goals from Matt O’Riley and Greg Taylor capped off a great night’s work for the champions, who now go into the league’s hiatus in buoyant mood, and Rodgers has been impressed by their reaction to the December defeats to Kilmarnock and Hearts.
“It can always be a tricky game mentally and physically after a Rangers game, but I thought we dealt with it really well and we made the start we wanted to in the first ten minutes,” Rodgers said.
“It was good tempo, good speed so that set us up well in the game. “That is what we talked about. These games are so important, and I think as we work together more the players understand more and the mentality that is required and the demands and you can now see the standard of performance we have put in place. And then the results will come.
“Very, very good. The second half the only downside was we never took the chances we created but we were much better 11 v 10 than we were at the weekend. We spoke about that after Rangers.
“You have to really dominate possession and counter press and we did that really well in the second half.
“I think you can see that it is getting better and improving. Those results against Kilmarnock and Hearts, it was about learning from those. I think you can see the difference in the team and how they are working.
“And sometimes you need that. To have success you need to have that bit of adversity. How the players have responded to that has been fantastic.
“Their mentality, their attitude, the speed, the tempo of the games is what we want as well with much more creativity. The second part of the season I am excited about.”
Given the improving performance of his side over the last four matches, it may have been presumed that Rodgers would be a little frustrated at the timing of the pause in hostilities, but after a hectic festive period, he is looking forward to the chance to reset and recharge the batteries.
When asked if the break had come at a bad time, he said: “Probably not. I have had flu and a cold for about a month, it has just been so busy.
“I think it’s a nice small period now for the players to recover because physically the demands are so much, especially how we want them to play and how intense we want them to be.
“So, that will be nice for them to recover and then we will get back and we have loads of time to do a lot of work and be ready for our first cup game.”
Meanwhile, Rodgers was pleased for Reo Hatate to get some late minutes against St Mirren as he completed his comeback from injury, and he is expecting big things from the midfielder in the second half of the campaign once he returns from international duty with Japan in the Asian Cup.
“You could see afterwards he was actually quite emotional to be back out on the pitch again,” he said.
“He’s put in so much hard work and he’s a big, big player for us.
“So hopefully he can go away and get some minutes and keep his fitness up because when he comes back he’s going to be huge for us in the second half of the season.
“It’s great for him to be back and Liel (Abada) as well because he brings a different dimension to the team - he’s a goal scorer but he plays wide, so he’s always running into score.
“Having those two players will help us play the kind of football we want to see.”
