Rodgers takes a swipe at ICC schedule

Brendan Rodgers has admitted he would prefer Celtic were playing competitive football this weekend rather than a friendly.

After two domestic win’s over Hearts and in midweek against Motherwell, the Hoops were the only side in Scotland not in action due to the International Champions Cup scheduling.

Whilst it does offer the club the chance to make as much money in one game as they receive in an entire domestic season, it does interrupt their season having just begun.

Speaking about the competition and it’s timing to the Scotsman, Rodgers said:

We’ve played about seven games in 20-odd days, so it was the perfect preparation for us. But my own feeling, coming up to Scotland is I don’t think we should be playing a friendly. That’s my personal take on it. The league has started, we should be playing competitive football.

We had a lot of friendlies already; to come here commercially it’s great, for the fans it great, we travel the world and we want to take the team around, but from a football perspective, I’d rather be playing a competition.

The players back home, though, they have played midweek, weekend, so to get an opportunity to recover is good. They worked really hard on Saturday morning, they weren’t sitting on their holiday, they’re getting ready for Wednesday.

Rodgers fielded a second-string Celtic side in Limerick who held their own against the Italian giants Inter Milan and despite falling to a 2-0 defeat, ‘keeper Leo Fasan and midfielders Ryan Christie, Liam Henderson and Kristoffer Ajer were among those who impressed.

Celtic will now prepare for their crucial first-leg play-off tie against Hapoel Be’er Sheva in the Champions League at Paradise on Wednesday.

Many of those who are expected to play this week remained in Glasgow but trained this morning ahead of the game.