Brendan Rodgers has challenged his Celtic squad to keep the foot down at Pittodrie and build on the blockbuster start to the season.
The Hoops can blast seven points clear of Aberdeen with a win in the north east and are currently AHEAD of they were at the same point in the famous Invincibles’ season. Celts have banked the same number of points after 13 games as 2016 but have a better goal difference this term.
Rodgers insisted staging a sensational repeat is not yet on his mind – and he doesn’t want his side to rest on their laurels. He said: “I never say complacency, but contentment is something you don’t want to have. You don’t want to be content and happy. You want to be constantly improving and developing.
“That’s what we want to do as a club. In the last couple of windows we’ve been able to energise the squad and bring it to a level that allows us to work like at the moment. We have to look beyond that to the future. There was obviously a goal setting process back then.
“Now we are pretty clear it’s more individual work with players and targets. It was no real secret back then… one was a Treble! I’m pretty sure we achieved them all.
“I think the consistent level of the team has been really high. That was a long time ago and you learn, as a coach, from those experiences. But these players can write their own history. That group was brilliant for me but the challenge is to create more historical moments as we go along.
“It took time to get going but it’s been a really high level the past couple of months and we need to keep it going.”
Rodgers rotated his squad at the weekend and hit Ross County for five and could shuffle again at Pittodrie to keep his side on their toes. He said: “I wouldn’t say it’s tricks – it’s more taking them on the journey and the story about what we want to achieve and finding the various ways to stimulate and make sure they are ready going into each game.
“You can never lay off that. Consistency is always the challenge when you play so often. You have to perform. A draw is no good, there’s always the demand to perform well and win.
“That is a challenge physically and mentally. We have players who are accustomed to it and some who are new to it. That’s our job to help them through it.”
Celtic can strike a huge blow to Aberdeen’s hopes – and pile more pressure on Rangers with another win. But Rodgers said: “There is such a long way to go.
“If we win the game, okay, we get a bit of a gap. But there are so many games to go. It’s always nice if you can go to one of your rivals and put in a good performance and get the points.
“We can only worry about ourselves. You can’t worry what other people think. That’s our notion going into every game. It’s to work even harder than we did on Saturday.
“Every game is an opponent for us to impose our style on the game. We know it will be tough, the crowd will be very vocal behind their team. But we’ve played in difficult grounds and atmospheres and coped very well.”
Aberdeen are the only domestic side to take points off the Parkhead men when they battled back from two down to snatch a draw at Celtic Park. The Hoops ran amok in a 6-0 Premier Sports Cup semi-final thrashing but Rodgers is gearing up for a scrap in the Granite City.
He said: “In the first game we went a bit slack and got punished but over the two games we created a lot of chances. Its away from home and every away game against the top teams is a challenge. But I expect us to go and create the game and give Aberdeen problems from the first whistle.”