Celtic now in 'much better place' for cup success

Brendan Rodgers believes his Celtic side are far better equipped to meet the demands of domestic domination as they prepare to open their Premier Sports Cup campaign at home to Hibs on Sunday,

Rodgers lost his 100% in Scottish cup competitions at the first hurdle in his second spell in Glasgow when Celtic lost at Kilmarnock 12 months ago.

Celtic eventually found their rhythm and took Rodgers' trophy haul to nine out of 10 and have continued where they left off this season with six goals in two league matches against Killie and Hibs.

"We were disappointed last season," manager Rodgers said. "Probably from my first spell, I had this ball and chain wrapped around me in terms of winning trophies and everything else.

"And that probably allowed us to break free from that in an indirect way, even though we'd have loved to have won it.

"But certainly from that point and moving forward, we've progressed and developed. And the team's in a much better place now.

"My compass always is looking at training and seeing how training is. And I look this season at how we've been training, how we've been working, and we've been able to take that on to the games.

"There's no doubt, I've always said it, and we should set that mentality and target of wanting to win every trophy. That starts on Sunday."