BRENDAN Rodgers last night insisted his Celtic team would ever look to fatigue as an excuse for under-par performances.
The champions will have played nine games in 28 days by the time the derby against Rangers is over on December 30.
And while the players have not been at their very best in recent weeks, Rodgers wasn't looking for sympathy.
Read more: Celtic 3, Hamilton Academical 1: Brendan Rodgers's team stretch their unbeaten run to 69 games
Asked about tiredness, Rodgers said: "Listen you have to expect something, but one of their chances came from us. It was loose play by Jozo Simunovic being short on the passback and the boy should maybe do better.
“But listen, it’s not an excuse for us. We know we’re in a run of games and it’s a really tight schedule - but that’s been the way since June.
“Since our first pre-season game started we’ve been training, playing, training, playing right the way through to now. It’s not an excuse for us.
“We have to be ready to work hard and press the game and when we have the ball look after it - and I thought in the main that the team did that really well.
“Of course Hamilton could put some risk into the game towards the end but we saw it through and got the result."
Read more: Martin Canning proud of his Hamilton players after their brave display at Celtic Park
Olivier Ntcham scored his fifth goal of the season and Rodgers has been pleased with how the Frenchman has come on.
The Celtic manager said: "I think he’s developing very, very well, as I would expect.
He’s a highly gifted player, the first goal is wonderful technique, it’s a brilliant finish.
“He’s got really good technique, good pace, good awareness and it’s just about him getting used to the number of games.
"Now he’s getting that consistency and adapting to everything since he’s moved to here and you see his quality tonight was very good. He’s developing very well."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel