Glasgow's Green And White

Manager’s delight as Celtic produce superb performance to reinforce derby dominance

 

- Mark Henderson

WATCHING your team trounce Rangers 5-1 at Ibrox to make it 42 domestic matches unbeaten in a season sounds like a Celtic manager’s version of utopia. But, while Brendan Rodgers was ecstatic at the way his players performed in Saturday’s derby demolition, he knew they could have inflicted even greater damage on their city rivals.

From start to finish, the six-in-a-row champions completed dominated and outclassed Pedro Caixhina’s side. Time and time again, they cut the Ibrox club to ribbons with their fast, fluent attacking football. Off the ball, they pressed furiously across the pitch. In the tackle, they were powerful and aggressive, denying their opponents any opportunity to build momentum.

Had the Hoops been more clinical, it could have been eight, nine or even double figures but, in the end, they had to be satisfied with five goals. For the manager, it was a demonstration of how effective Celtic are becoming as a collective, with everyone working in tandem to achieve spectacular results.

“We played fantastically well,” he told the View in an exclusive interview. “To come to one of your great rivals and perform like we did and create that scoreline was so impressive and our only disappointment was that we could have got more.

“We scored five and we really had at least another three really good chances to score. I’m obviously absolutely delighted as, if you can come to play as well as that when you come to Ibrox and win then you have to happy.

“This was the game where Rangers really wanted to come and press and get after us, but how the players coped with that technically was very good. Tactically, they operated the game at a high level and they never gave Rangers any real moments. We were disappointed with their goal but sometimes that happens. It was an outstanding performance.