Brendan Rodgers in Rangers snub as St Patrick’s Day trumps Celtic rivals TV time

Brendan Rodgers has revealed he won’t be keeping track with Rangers‘ clash at Dundee this afternoon.

Celtic went ahead in the title race yesterday with a 3-1 victory over St Johnstone at Parkhead. Their slender one point lead will stand until Gers face the Dees at Dens Park today, should the game go ahead amid a pitch inspection scheduled for this morning. If it does kick-off at 12pm as planned, Rodgers won’t be watching along.

The manager explained how he will, instead, be celebrating St Patrick’s Day with family and friends and will take what comes next week no matter where his side sit in the division by then.

“It’s St Patrick’s day, there will be a celebration of the Irish community worldwide,” he told Sky Sports. “I won’t have any interest in other results. We did our job today and that’s all we can do. We’ll have a good day tomorrow.”

He added: “Afterwards we have a few days’ work where the guys will train well and train hard and we will have a bounce game that will give some of the guys an opportunity to get some game time. We will have a little bit of recovery and then we will all be back together. We lost Liel Abada and we lost Reo Hatate (on international duty). Big players that make the difference for you.

“Fingers crossed they all come back healthy and we have a strong squad. The only one I spoke to was Gregg (Berhalter) at the US team. We had a good chat. Obviously the case with Cam, who has been out for a bit, I was just worried he would go away and be involved in a couple of games when their big games are more later on in June. We had a good chat and it was decided that he stays behind and does his work for us and tries to remain fit for the rest of the season.

“You always have to respect international managers’ job as well and I also respect that players want to play international football. Fingers crossed they can all get back fit and well.”