SAME CITY BUT WORLDS APART

Brendan makes six changes & champs remain a wrecking ball while Phil throws muck at wall in hope of seeing what sticks

- KEITH JACKSON

IN less than two weeks' time they'll come together on the south side of Glasgow.

But, although Brendan Rodgers and Philippe Clement will share the same postcode for an afternoon on the touchline at Hampden Park, these two managers are now co-existing in two completely different worlds. If such a thing is even possible. And for the time being at least.

On Saturday, Rodgers saw his long-term vision for Celtic being realised and coming together in front of his eyes.

Having spent so much of his first season back in town banging on about the need for his squad to be reinforced with "quality" additions, he must have felt as if the first half disemboweling of Ross County was a moment of vindication.

It's what he had in his mind's eye from the start. The manpower required to fight on two fronts, in the Champions League and in the domestic game, without skipping a beat.

Better still, to be able to make wholesale changes to his starting XI and to find that these tweaks and alterations might actually improve the energy and intensity of his side's performance rather than heighten the risk of a drop-off.

Rodgers changed six players from the team he selected to face Club Brugge on Wednesday night and four of these so-called second stringers - Liam Scales, Luke McCowan, Paulo Bernardo and Adam Idah - got themselves on the scoresheet before County had made it inside to the sanctuary of the dressing room at the interval.

This was wrecking-ball stuff from the champions and rock-solid proof Rodgers is a manager in complete control, not only of his own team and its destiny but also of the direction his football club is moving in.