Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers is a big hit in Glasgow… even with Rangers fans!

A CELTIC fan from, he guesses, about the age of  three, Brendan Rodgers says he was ready for the fervour with which the club is followed.

What he certainly didn’t expect, however, was to find himself on to be the receiving end of gratitude from Rangers supporters!

Yet as he gears up for the Premiership opener against Hearts at Tynecastle this afternoon, the former Liverpool boss swears that has been the case.

“I’ve had them come up to me, thanking me for coming to Scotland,” said Rodgers.

“Guys showing me their tattoos, and saying: ‘I’m a Rangers supporter, but thank you for coming here’. That is fine because I respect that.

“Listen, everyone has been brilliant and I’ve settled in really well. My family’s up here, too.

“I hadn’t expected anything less because you Scots are a good race of people!

“The expectancy up here, though, is just huge – and that is not just for Celtic but other teams too.

“I witnessed that first hand when I was sat with Neil Lennon in a press conference for a game between Celtic, who he was managing at the time, and Liverpool in Dublin.

“It was a pre-season game, and I found the level of intensity that was with him at that period of the season just remarkable. I was taken aback. I couldn’t believe it.

“I understand the rewards at the end of it are Champions League and all that. But I think there needs to be perspective as well.”

While the new Hoops boss hopes for realism when his team are involved in European action, he accepts that in the domestic arena, any outcome other than Celtic winning their sixth straight title will be perceived as failure.

“That’s good, it is the pressure that you want,” he said. “If I wanted to be comfortable, I could have sat and stayed out of work for another couple of years.

“With my pay-off, it was fine and life was good, and I travelled and golfed.

“But, you know, when you come to Celtic, when you come to the big clubs, that pressure is there and some of us, we need it, in a funny way.”

And as his side approach a big domestic double header which sees them away to Hearts today and then home to Motherwell in the League Cup on Wednesday night, he insists he and his players are ready for the challenge.

“They will be tough matches but we are where we want to be,” said Rodgers.

“Apart from the result over in Gibraltar, our
pre-season has been really, really good.

“I’ve found out a lot about the players and, thus far, we are on course to get into the Champions League. But we are here to win everything, as much as we possibly can anyway.

“So the line-up we put out against Motherwell will be as strong as we can put out.

“I think the League Cup is a great marker to put down in your season with the final in November. If we can get a trophy in there early, it’s good.”

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