Brendan Rodgers delighted with what he heard Chelsea star say about his Celtic team after USA match

Brendan Rodgers couldn’t be happier with the work his Celtic squad have put into their pre-season preparations and projected excitement in his pre-match media conference on Friday.

Celtic face Kilmarnock at Celtic Park on Sunday in the opening Scottish Premiership match of the campaign, unfurling the league champions flag before shooting for their first three points.

Pre-season results mean little – everyone knows that. They are nothing but fitness exercises. However, the attitude and effort shown by the players over the last month has been pleasing.

The team look sharp, motivated and eager to find attacking combinations that can punish opponents. There’s hope for improvement on last season’s performances despite the eventual double win.

Rodgers is now taking personal pride in the development he sees in this group of players. He’s also found comfort from what he heard Chelsea saying about the Bhoys after the recent friendly in Indiana, which the Scottish champions won 4-1.

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Pre-season results mean little – everyone knows that. They are nothing but fitness exercises. However, the attitude and effort shown by the players over the last month has been pleasing.

The team look sharp, motivated and eager to find attacking combinations that can punish opponents. There’s hope for improvement on last season’s performances despite the eventual double win.

Brendan Rodgers hallmarks are on this Celtic team

The manager explained [Celtic FC]: “I am very pleased with the fitness and technical aspects. We’ve worked on some things in pre-season, especially out in America, against some really good opponents.

“It was interesting because I had one young player of mine who played for Chelsea, a former player. He said after the game when he played against them – he was talking on the bench – and he was talking about ‘That was a Brendan team we were playing’.

“So that was a good sign for me on a personal level because he has played for me before, he knows what I expect and demand. He can see it in a different team but playing the same way. From that side of it, we are in a really good place.”

Celtic must translate form into Premiership points

It’s now important that Celtic don’t become complacent or start thinking their electric pre-season displays guarantee anything in the Premiership.

This is a tough, physical league and the Bhoys will be playing a completely different style of opponent. Low blocks, dogged defending, tactical fouls and all the rest. It can sap the best teams of free-flowing energy.

They’ll have to show up for a battle against Kilmarnock, as they do against every team in the league this season. Showing that fight will allow the team space to demonstrate their quality.

Celtic defender Maik Nawrocki was hoping for a strong pre-season period with the club to prepare for the coming campaign but it didn’t quite work out like that.

He rebuffed early transfer interest from old club Legia to fight for his place in the squad and was one of the first back to Lennoxtown training.

Named in the starting eleven for the first friendly away to Ayr United, the centre-back limped out of the match after 20 minutes with a calf complaint.

He subsequently missed the game against Queen’s Park and then the entire USA tour, not involved at all on the trip as he recovered.

However, there’s better news on Friday after he was spotted back involved in training ahead of this weekend’s match against Kilmarnock.

Maik Nawrocki returns to the Celtic fold ahead of Kilmarnock

Photo agency SNS snapped the defender as part of the group session at Lennoxtown, apparently having overcome the injury.

Thankfully it hasn’t kept him out of action for too long and, despite now playing catch-up with his fitness, he can again compete for a spot in Rodgers’ team.

Cameron Carter-Vickers and Liam Scales remain the prime picks in the centre of defence. That’s unlikely to change, for now, but Nawrocki can make a renewed push behind the scenes.

Celtic defence could be strengthened further

Gustaf Lagerbielke and Yuki Kobayashi aren’t thought to have big futures are Celtic so there could be a fair amount of turnover in talent at centre-back.

Reports indicate that the club are aiming to strengthen the position before the end of August, with Dara O’Shea the primary link, so Nawrocki could find it even more difficult to get game time in 2024/25 after just 13 appearances in his debut season.

Whether that results in his own transfer exit remains to be seen but, for now, he’ll be focused on getting himself back to full fitness and catching the eye of Rodgers.

Brendan Rodgers is walking a fine line on all the discussions around Celtic transfers this summer.

He knows as well as anyone that there’s still a lot of work to be done on his squad before it is ready for the many challenges ahead this season.

However, he is also keen to show respect for the recruitment staff he works with. He isn’t at all interested in sowing division or negativity within the Celtic set-up.

He’s not at war with the board. He’s not calling anyone out publicly. He wants everyone at the club to be united and moving forward together.

Yet, there’s an undeniable urgency in what he told Sky Sports on Friday, noting that the squad is currently short on the quality it needed last season, never mind this one.

Brendan Rodgers on Celtic transfers

The Celtic manager said: “It is always about quality, I think that’s what is key. We had a good squad last season but we needed to improve on that. Thus far, we are still short even on those numbers. Paulo [Bernardo] coming back is great but we are still short on that.

“The guys have been working so hard behind the scenes, we know what we need to do. I’m not going to get bogged down by the negative toxic energy that comes around transfers.

“We will work with the players that we have, we know that we will make them better, we know as a club what we need to do and what we need to improve. We have just under four weeks to be able to do that.”