Yesterday we published an article on the number of games Celtic have played compared to their SPFL counterparts.
Celtic seemed to have coped okay with the harsh fixture list they got dealt, until their Easter Road display.
I counted four times that Mikael Lustig got left behind in sprints, he completely gassed out. Celtic became notorious last season for winning games late on and their general levels of fitness.
But that run has taken its toll – Hibs finished the strongest on Sunday and it was Lustig again who saved the Hoops invincible record.
The last time Rodgers rang in the changes was the third game against Motherwell. When I seen the team selection that day I thought it was too much, six changes in total. How wrong was I? Celtic wiped the floor with Motherwell after two previous close encounters. Celtic still have six games left in December before a deserved Christmas break.
Rodgers is expecting another tough game and hopes to win the game playing his own way and not getting dragged into another scrappy affair.
“They played well in their game at the weekend against St Johnstone but, like Tommy ‘s teams do, they hang in there and eventually get the win.
“We’ll expect another tough game from Hamilton but of course we’re at home. We want to impose our way of working and our style on the game and hopefully, that brings us the three points.”
“We want to win every single game we play and we’ve virtually done that domestically,” he said. “But with the games, you can’t win or when something goes against you, it’s important you have that resilience and mentality to not lose the game, and that’s clearly what this group have.
“We still need to be better. We’ve conceded more goals at this point in the season than what we had this time last season. We still have lots of improvements to make but you have to respect the other managers and players. It’s been very competitive and, thus far, we’ve been able to win a lot of our games.”
