Brendan Rodgers excited for Celtic’s crunch clash with in-form Aberdeen

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers is relishing a “really exciting” top-of-the-table showdown with Aberdeen when the William Hill Premiership campaign resumes a week on Saturday.

The Hoops defeated Sligo Rovers 3-2 in a friendly on Wednesday night and will now break for a few days before returning to work next week to prepare for the visit of a Dons side who have won all 13 competitive matches this season.

Although several of his players are currently on international duty, Rodgers is pleased that some of his squad will get a short break from a hectic schedule before the encounter with Jimmy Thelin’s in-form side.

“We’ll have a bit of rest but then we’re planning ahead for that really exciting first game back, so we’re looking forward to that,” Rodgers told Celtic TV.

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“We’ll have a couple of days to recover because it’s been a long period of games, seven games in 23 days, so we’ll have a little bit of recovery time and then get everyone back in to prepare for the Aberdeen game.”

Scott Bain, Stephen Welsh, Maik Nawrocki, Alex Valle, Luke McCowan, Yang Hyun-jun and Luis Palma all started for Celtic against Sligo, with Palma, who has been frustrated at making just one competitive start this term, bagging a hat-trick.

“It was a really good exercise for us because a lot of our senior players got 90 minutes in, which was great,” said Rodgers. “The second half was a better tempo than the first.

“It was excellent to come out to Ireland. Sligo were very good. It was a real good test, especially for some of our boys that haven’t played for a little bit of time.”

Rodgers also fielded several young players in Sligo but he explained that they must work on their “physicality” in order to get into his high-intensity first team.

“A lot of them need to improve on that aspect of their game,” he said. “They need to have more running power, they need to get in contention more.

“They have talent with the ball but that’s nowhere near enough. That physicality allows them to play at a higher tempo. But it was nice for them to feel that and play in front of a crowd and play with that type of personality you need to play for Celtic. Some of them did really well.”