Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers keen to ‘dominate every competition’ this season

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers is again targeting domestic domination with style as the champions prepare to begin their title defence against St Mirren.

Rodgers was a penalty shoot-out defeat against Aberdeen away from completing his third treble as Celtic manager last season after finishing 17 points clear of Rangers in the Premiership.

A new challenge awaits in terms of a Rangers side under new ownership and new leadership in the form of head coach Russell Martin.

However, Rodgers said: “The aim as a Celtic manager is always to dominate every competition.

“We have obviously qualification for the Champions League that we want to arrive into, and we want to be really competitive in that competition if we arrive there.

“That was our idea last year. Nothing changes. You add to that the pressures here at Celtic, it’s always about not just winning, but winning in a style of football. That’s always the pursuit of the teams here, to play attacking, aggressive football.

“So it’s not just about winning, it’s how we win, which is important for us.”

Rodgers is still looking to add to his squad in the forward areas and confidence gained from impressive pre-season wins over Sporting Lisbon and Newcastle was balanced by a 5-1 loss to Ajax.

The Celtic manager has seen plenty to encourage him in terms of how well his players have prepared.

“This is my third pre-season since I’ve come back and the metrics of the team and the squad that we’ve had is at the highest over the course of the pre-season,” he said.

“So, in terms of the guys that are here, they’ve worked so hard. Everyone at the club has put together a fantastic pre-season programme for us and now we arrive into these last couple of days and ready for flag day, which is a special day for us.”

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson will embrace a tough start to the campaign which sees them also facing Motherwell, Rangers, Hibernian and Premier Sports Cup opponents Hearts in August.

“If you watch my teams playing, we don’t play with fear,” Robinson said.

“We play on the front foot, we press every team and we try and play, we try and pass, we’ve got real energy and pace in the team, real creativity in the team and from Christmas onwards you saw what we were about.

“I don’t think there’ll be any team that relishes playing us and that’s the way we have to make it. We have to go at people, we have to play him behind people and we have to play with the pace and energy that we have on the side and we certainly don’t fear anybody.

“We embrace it and we look forward to it and I think the players come in every day believing that they can win every football match.”