Brendan Rodgers refused to let a team LEAK put a dampener on Celtic’s day as it rained goals at Hampden.
The Hoops hammered in-form Aberdeen 6-0 in a Premier Sports Cup last four clash to book their final berth on December 15. A Daizen Maeda hat-trick and goals from Kyogo, Nicolas Kuhn and Cameron Carter-Vickers put the Dons to the sword. But only after Rodgers’ starting line-up appeared on social media before kick-off for the second game in a row.
It also happened before their Premiership victory over Dundee in midweek and the manager has vowed to find the Parkhead mole. But after a scintillating display against Jimmy Thelin’s men he doesn’t want it to detract from their performance. On the team news leak, Rodgers said: “It’s clearly disappointing and it’s not ideal, however it comes out.
“There are no real secrets in football, that’s the reality. But it’s not nice when it gets out there. And especially if it’s from Celtic supporters.
“It might feel great for someone’s ego to put it out and pass it on to other people. But as a manager, I can tell you that I’ve had that before with opposition teams. And when I’ve got to know about it, it has really helped me in my preparation – and it has helped me win games.
“So whoever is putting it out, if it’s someone from Celtic, you’re not a Celtic supporter. Because you’re not helping Celtic. We will do everything we can to find out (who it is). But I don’t get angry about it. It’s the modern world now, isn’t it? There’s so much communication.
“But I’d like to think it won’t be until you play Celtic and you’re standing in front of them that you feel our intensity. You can never know that until you play against us.
“It won’t dampen our performance and our achievement today, which was absolutely brilliant. We were outstanding. Aberdeen have been so good in the league so we knew how tough it would be. We had to be really good so it’s a massive credit to the players for their mentality and how ruthless they were.”
Celtic had top performers all over the pitch but Japanese winger Maeda was the pick of the bunch with his treble. He gave Aberdeen’s defence a torrid time and Rodgers praised his desire afterwards.
He said: “It’s a special day for Daizen to get a hat-trick in a semi-final. It’s just his hunger, isn’t it? He hasn’t been feeling great for a few weeks before he went away with Japan but has come back and been great.
“I gave him a rest during the week but his appetite to work hard and run is incredible. He’s getting into areas now and has scored important goals for us this season.
“Daizen is a joy to work with. He wants to run, we want him to run and we’re a running team. We need to be active in games and there’s no-one more active than him.”
This was a statement performance from Rodgers’ team – even if he refused to admit it at full-time. Instead, he says they played too slow in the first half, despite being three goals up.
They stepped up a gear in the second half to hit six and it set them up perfectly for a mouth-watering Champions League clash with RB Leipzig at Parkhead on Tuesday night. Rodgers said: “It’s exciting for us. We needed to and wanted to make a really good performance today. And we’ve done that.
“Now, we’re playing against a top team from a great league so it will be another challenge for us. But it will be absolutely rocking at Celtic Park, so we will look forward to that. When Celtic really need a result, our fans can bring it closer to us and hopefully that will be the case on Tuesday night.”
After a sensational win, Rodgers could laugh off a comedy moment in the first half at Hampden when he slipped on the turf booting a ball back on to the pitch – and picked up a yellow card from ref Kevin Clancy.
He said: “To be fair, it was well deserved! I shouldn’t be falling over there. It was because I kicked the ball on to the pitch. I bounced up pretty quickly, probably from embarrassment. It was a bit slippy with my shoes so it was a good decision by Kevin.”