Celtic 4-2 Hibs: Brendan Rodgers wants side to keep rewriting history
- Published
Brendan Rodgers has urged his Celtic side to continue making history after seeing them beat Hibernian 4-2 to reach the League Cup final.
Rodgers' side, who won the treble last season, have now gone 60 domestic matches without defeat.
"We've got to three finals now," said Rodgers.
"In the last year we've written history at this club in terms of a treble and going unbeaten. But let's keep rewriting history."
Rodgers, who stressed his squad is "only at the beginning of a cycle," was delighted with how his team reacted to their midweek 3-0 defeat away to Bayern Munich in the Champions League.
A Mikael Lustig double gave them the advantage over Hibs at Hampden but Anthony Stokes' controversial penalty reduced the deficit.
Moussa Dembele made it 3-1 before Oliver Shaw's reply, but Dembele added another late on to seal the win.
"I'm particularly pleased today with the mentality," Rodgers added. "We've had a lot of games, travel, the game in midweek which was played at a high level, to come and play against a Hibs team that have really good energy and have some very good players - to come out on the other side of that scoring four goals, and at any time in the game when we were asked a question we were able to find an answer, I was very pleased.
"What you can never question is the desire and the mentality, because to get up to 60 games (unbeaten), it's absolutely incredible and it really shows that spirit that the players have fostered.
"I know the players well enough to know the speed of the movement, and you saw at times we gave the ball away. When you're fatigued it affects your technique, and at times today we had a wee bit of fatigue in our game.
"But what we did well was manage the game with the ball, and controlled the tempo of the game.
"On days like today after a tough Champions League game, the players really showed their level of fitness at the end."
As delighted as he is with his side's form, Rodgers added: "Way too early (to talk about going unbeaten again this season). You can see how things go against you. We had a penalty go against us which wasn't a penalty, thankfully the players responded to it. We just look forward to the next game and don't become complacent."
Swedish right back Lustig echoed his manager's positivity, but felt his side were unlucky to have conceded a penalty when Dedryck Boyata was judged to have brought down Martin Boyle.
"We played well, we had a lot of the ball," Lustig said. "It felt quite strange when they got a penalty, I don't think it's a pen, but suddenly Hibs were in the game and we know they have good players so we knew it was going to be a tough game. But at the end of the day I think we were the better team.
"Straight away when I scored the second goal I was waiting for a free-kick or something. It's always nice to score two goals, especially at Hampden.
"We feel good but we still haven't reached our peak yet. Hopefully we can get fitter and continue to win games."
- Published21 October 2017
- Published21 October 2017