As reported by The Daily Record, Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers doesn't believe tiredness should be used as an excuse for standards slipping and mistakes potentially coming to the fore this December.

What's the story?

Celtic are currently in the midst of a massively difficult December schedule of nine matches in 28 days and with five more still to go before the end of the month, Rodgers doesn't want to hear tiredness as an excuse for any slip ups.

Despite comfortably winning against Hamilton on Wednesday night, there were a couple of occasions in the second half when the Hoops made mistakes that could have been costly, but the Hoops boss doesn't think the schedule is to blame.

As quoted by The Daily Record, Rodgers said:

You have to expect something, but one of the chances came from us. It was loose play by 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 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.

Can Celtic navigate the remaining fixtures this month without dropping any more points?

Dangers ahead

The matches don't get any easier with the Hoops having to travel to hostile Tynecastle to face Hearts this weekend before another home match next mid-week.

There's then a massive trio of fixtures at home to Aberdeen, away to Dundee and at home to Rangers over the festive period, with any dropped points in those ones potentially damaging to their lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership table.

It's a critical period for Brendan Rodgers' side who have drawn some criticism for drawing more matches this season already than the entirety of last term.

However, they're still in a strong position and if they can get through the rest of December unscathed, they'll head into the winter break with their grip on Scottish football as firm as ever.

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