Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers says he’s pleased to end an ‘excellent’ week of training in Portugal with 4-1 win over Portimonense.
Goals from Reo Hatate, Liel Abada, Ben Summers and Oh Hyeon-gyu sealed a comprehensive win for the new boss, as the Premiership champions brought their training camp to an end with the behind closed doors fixture.
Rodgers said he was pleased not just with the result, but also the intensity shown by his side in challenging conditions:
“Yeah it was excellent. We’ve had a fantastic week so to finish off with a decent performance and result for the guys, even though that’s not the most important thing at this stage, I was really pleased.”
“Obviously the heat has been sweltering here but in terms of intensity some of the football was very good. There still a long way to go but I’m really pleased.”
“I think you seen in some of the goals that we scored in terms of pressing high up the pitch, looking to win it and then took our chances. It was really good run out and some of the international guys it was the first bit of game time. Overall it’s been a really really good week.”
19-year old midfielder Ben Summers was amongst the goals earlier today and Rodgers revealed certain young players on the tour have made a positive impression:
“I mentioned before I think they’ve been very good. They’ve stepped up and some of them in particular, I’ve been really impressed with. I think for a young player of this age, I always look for the attitude and the energy and most of the young guys that have come in have got that.”
Celtic now look ahead to next week’s tour of Japan before the domestic campaign gets underway next month, with the new boss insistent that his side will benefit from the ‘tough’ pre-season schedule:
“It’s a tough schedule over the two weeks here in the heat and it will be similar heat in Japan with the humidity. Of course the teams we’ll be playing out there are already half way through their season so it’ll be step up again and challenge for us but that’s what we want. We need that challenge at this time of the season to improve our fitness.”
