Brendan Rodgers demands big improvement as he challenges Celtic to bounce back

Brendan Rodgers demanded a drastic improvement as he challenged Celtic to bounce back from their Old Firm defeat and show they deserve to be champions across the remainder of this season.

The Hoops are reeling from a first home loss against city rivals Rangers since 2020 after going down 3-2 to Barry Ferguson’s side at Celtic Park on Sunday.

Despite the derby setback, Celtic are 13 points clear at the top of the Premiership and remain on course to defend their title, while they have a Scottish Cup semi-final against St Johnstone next month.

Rodgers has ordered his team to sharpen up and make sure they close out the campaign with a flourish as they bid to complete a domestic treble.

“Firstly, the message to the supporters is, we apologise because we always want to win games here and against our big rivals, so, for them, it’s not a great feeling,” the manager said in an official club interview.

“Our message to the players is, we have to be much better. That’s what we spoke about afterwards.

“In every facet of the game we have to be much better and if you’re going to be a champion this year, you’ve got to go and show that you’re a champion and you’ve got to earn it.

“So there are eight games to go, with 13 points (advantage), but we’ve got a lot of big games to play.”

The one silver lining for Rodgers from Sunday’s derby defeat was the performance of defender Maik Nawrocki, who impressed on his first start of the season in the absence of injured centre-backs Liam Scales and Auston Trusty.

“I thought he did really well, I said that to him afterwards in the changing room,” said the Hoops boss.

“There wasn’t too many highlights for us. But certainly for him, for a guy that’s not played virtually for a year, it shows you how well he’s trained and how professional he’s been. I thought he did really, really well to last the game.”