Brendan Rodgers looking to seal ‘brilliant’ season with his third Celtic treble

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has never shied away from the fact that winning the treble was the target for the domestic season.

The champions are one game away from meeting their goal as they prepare to face Aberdeen in the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup final.

Saturday’s Hampden clash presents the chance for Celtic to claim their sixth treble in nine years.

That would treble the total tally of domestic clean sweeps that Celtic boasted when Rodgers first arrived at Parkhead in the summer of 2016.

“We set out nearly 11 months ago with the objective to win three domestic trophies,” he said. “And we’ve won two. We now have one more game to do the third one.

“That there, along with our progression in Europe, would end what would be a brilliant season for us.

“We’re just keeping it simple, refining our ideas this week and look forward to Saturday.”

Having raised the bar of expectation at Celtic Park, and seen Neil Lennon and Ange Postecoglou add to the treble tally themselves, Rodgers embraces the demand for domestic dominance.

Explaining what goes into his pre-season presentation, he said: “I present to the players, and they will have their own ideas and goals individually, but really as a team it’s providing a road map for the season.

“From pre-season, what that will look like, and mapping it out on the journey, right the way through to Champions League qualification, through to winning the first trophy of the season, getting to the halfway point, just taking the guys on the journey of what the season could like like, and the various signposts along the way.

“And on top of that it’s performance driven. We know we want to win, that’s why we’re here, that’s what the expectation is here, what drives us. But there’s a process to that and it’s just really about outlining what that can look like, from June right through to the end of the season.

“At the beginning of the season the challenge is to win every domestic trophy. Add to that all the performance-related goals in terms of goals you want to score, concede.

“Listen, the vision is very clear for a club like ourselves at the beginning of a season.

“Well, it certainly is now what the expectation is. It’s incredible really how that has transpired to be the norm as such, that you are sitting declaring that the treble is what we want to achieve.

“But we can’t be frightened of that either. When you are at a club of this size, with this expectation, you can’t be frightened of that.

“That’s what you want to be able to narrow your focus in. Then when you have done that, you have got to get to work and earn the right to do all the things that you want to do.”