Brendan Rodgers Warns Celtic Players With Leicester City Claim

Celtic will have one advantage going into the Glasgow Derby this weekend at Parkhead. They will be the fresher of the two teams.

While Celtic have had a week off, Rangers are coming straight out of a gruelling tie against Fenerbahce. They played 120 minutes of football in midweek, losing 2-0 to Jose Mourinho's side at Ibrox before winning the tie on penalties.

Of course, that will give the Rangers squad a boost, as they booked their spot in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League.

Considering how inconsistent they have been in domestic competitions, that is certainly an unexpected achievement. We have seen Rangers overdeliver in the Europa League in recent years and they have managed to do it again.

At the same time though, the tie against Fenerbahce will have taken a toll on the team, both physically and mentally.

We saw Celtic lose to Hibernian straight after almost winning away at Allianz Arena against Bayern Munich. And they had not even played 120 minutes on that night.

Brendan Rodgers has sent a warning to those who might be expecting it to be easy against a tired Rangers side. According to STV News, the Celtic manager said: "It’s always a mental thing. I had a recent experience with my team at Leicester, where we played Manchester City on the 26th of December away. Peak Man City.

“And then on the 28th, virtually two days later, we played peak Liverpool. So it was as tough as you get.

“And the second game, whenever Liverpool had more rest coming into the game than ourselves, we had virtually no rest going into the game and won the game 1-0.

“So physically, of course, it’s exhausting and it’s tiring, but you come into a Celtic-Rangers game, it’s about your mentality as well."

So, Rodgers used his own experience from his time as manager of Leicester City to show that playing back-to-back big games does not always have a negative impact on the result.

Of course, Celtic's focus has to be on producing their best. At the top of their game, in front of a Parkhead crowd, we know that this team can win against Rangers.

Hopefully, the 3-0 loss against Rangers away at Ibrox in the last Glasgow Derby will act as added motivation for the team as well because in all honesty, the result of this game is not going to have much of an impact on the league title race.