Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers feels his ability to rotate the squad is having a positive impact on the health of his players. Rodgers has a fully-fit squad for the visit of Hibernian on Saturday after making six changes for last weekends 5-0 win over Ross County and reversing four of those for the midweek victory over Aberdeen.
Stream the Scottish Premiership with NOWDownload the Sky Sports AppScottish Premiership table | Fixtures | ResultsFree-to-watch Scottish Premiership highlightsSeveral substitutes made a major impact as Celtic clinched victory in the 78th minute thanks to Reo Hatates goal.
Rodgers said: Were in a really, really good place, and I think that is also part of the rotation. Sometimes if you dont have the depth of squad and the strength in your squad, you may be having to play players for 90-plus minutes three times a week, playing them all the time, which is when you have a greater risk of injury.
What weve been able to do is manage the minutes of the players and where there has been maybe a little niggle, we can then take someone out. Or if someone has played a lot more minutes, then we have that possibility to take them out.
Thats the benefit of having a depth of squad. So Ive really enjoyed that aspect of it, picking the teams to put out and giving that opportunity for some of them to have some breathing space. It also can depend on the game that youre playing and what it is you want from the game.
That will decide who plays also. With a number of players in form, Rodgers has been able to plan ahead with his team selections and he will have next Tuesdays Champions League clash with Dinamo Zagreb in mind when he chooses who starts against Hibs.
Listen, Im not going to sit here and say you dont think ahead, he said. Of course you do. Thats the nature of my job. I have to plan forward, of course. But always you have to look to the next game as your priority.
You need to understand what it is youre thinking about for clearly the Zagreb game, like I was when we had Ross County before we had Aberdeen. So you have to plan forward. But thats the exciting part of the job.
Its absolutely brilliant Ive got a great group of players that are hungry, that are ambitious and they all want to play, which is great. If they dont, they respect whoevers playing. They look after their colleagues and then were all in to get the result.
