Evening Telegraph (First Edition)

Rodgers can see his Celtic attack starting to pick up demands

CELTIC manager Brendan Rodgers saw further evidence his attackers are getting to grips with his demands as they continued their flying start to the season at Easter Road.

Rodgers felt his team could have been more clinical in their 2-0 win over Hibernian but the performanc­e of Nicolas Kuhn was a major positive as the winger produced a goal and an assist to follow his opening-day strike against Kilmarnock.

Kyogo Furuhashi could not take one of three good chances but was heavily involved in Kuhn’s early goal with his saved shot turned into the path of the German by James Forrest after latching on to a ball in behind.

Forrest knows all there is to know about Rodgers’ style and has continued where he left off in the final months of last season, but there is a definite improvemen­t in Furuhashi’s tactical game as well as Kuhn’s fitness and effectiven­ess.

The Japanese forward looked slightly out of sorts after Rodgers replaced Ange Postecoglo­u, for whom he hit 34 goals in his second season in Scotland.

Now, Rodgers feels he has got the balance right between his instincts and instructio­ns.

“I’ve said it before, I don’t need him to be scoring 40 goals,” Rodgers said.

“But he is involved, absolutely. It took him a little bit of time probably to understand for me that it’s not always about being on the last line. For me, I want him to play the space rather than the position.

“I think he’s playing the space really well. He’s running in behind, he’s coming short, he’s linking it. He should have scored but he’s playing really, really well.”