Manager: Players are training well and we're ready for Saints test

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Celtic F.C.

·4 April 2025

Manager: Players are training well and we're ready for Saints test

Brendan Rodgers is looking forward to the next couple of months as his side look to conclude what has already been an impressive season by securing the two remaining trophies up for grabs in order to deliver another domestic treble for the club.

This Sunday, Celtic are in league action when they face an away game against St Johnstone – also their Scottish Cup semi-final opponents later this month – and the manager is looking for his side to produce a strong performance and collect another three points.

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Having established a 13-point lead at the top of the Premiership table, and with only seven games remaining, the Hoops are in a strong position to secure their fourth consecutive league title, but concentration rather than complacency is the watchword ahead of this weekend’s game.

Speaking at Lennoxtown today, the Celtic manager said: “The players have been brilliant in training this week, watching the level, because it would be very easy, especially when we’ve had a few days of sunshine up here, to feel relaxed, but it’s anything but that.

“At this stage of the season it really is about your focus and training with a big heart every single day and then you look to take that into the game at the weekend.”

It’s the third meeting of the season with St Johnstone, the two previous encounters having finished in Celtic’s favour – 4-0 at home at the end of December, preceded by a 6-0 win at McDiarmid Park back in September.

“The performance up there earlier in the season was so good,” the manager said, “the level of our game, the goals – we had a goal disallowed as well, which I felt was a goal – but the focus of the team and the level of the football was at a high level.

“We’re at the point in the season where it’s one game a week and we have to be really intense, we have to go and who our authority in the game and that’s what we intend to do.

'I look at how St Johnstone play and I think they’ve been unfortunate in terms of a number of the games they’ve played.'

“The new manager’s come in and what he’s trying to and how they’re trying to play, and they made some changes in January as well, so the team looks a bit different. He wants them to play a technical game. Tactically you can see how they move and I’ve enjoyed analysing them, but they’ve just not quite got the results.

“So, as always, we have to prepare for a tough game. The surface probably won’t be ideal but we have to deal with that and look to bring our ‘A’ game.”

One player who has consistently brought his ‘A’ game this season has been Daizen Maeda, and the Japanese internationalist picked up his second consecutive Player of the Month award following some impressive displays in March.

That culminated in a double against Hearts last weekend to help the Hoops win 3-0 and take his goals tally for the season to 30, and his manager has been delighted with his contribution to the campaign.

“It’s a remarkable few months he’s had but also a remarkable season,” Brendan Rodgers said. “To be sat on 30 goals, where primarily you’ve played as a winger, it’s only really since February we’ve put him in there.

'But he’s everything that I want to see in a central striker – his work-rate, his intensity and then, of course, the movement that he makes for his goals.'

“He’s just so instinctive, but also his reading of situations is so good. And I think he’s improved on his technical level of his finishing and that comes with confidence as well.

“So when you see him play through the centre, you feel he’s going to get goals and create goals, so I’m very happy for him.”