Brendan Rodgers has hinted that Craig Gordon could be set for a prolonged spell at his number one.

The Scotland internationalist lost his place to Dorus de Vries earlier this season, but an injury to the Dutchman opened the door again to Gordon.

And Rodgers believes that the keeper has taken on board all the pointers he was given from the new regime at the club.

"I look at Craig Gordon,” said Rodgers.”Watch his last game at Dundee and compare it to when I first came in.

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"Craig is now 32, 33 and he's controlling the game from behind. He's picking passes now.

"He is dictating the game.”

Meanwhile, Rodgers has had a decent break but is not readying himself for a frantic run-in between now and the end of the year.

It is a busy end to this month with Champions League football and the League Cup semi-final against Rangers on the horizon, but it over Decemeber when things really intensify for Celtic with a run of 9 games in a condensed spell.

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Rodgers, though, believes that pressure is an indication of how successful Celtic have been already this season.

“We’ve now got seven games before the next period, but hopefully it shows that, if you are being successful, you’re playing regularly, and that’s important for us,” he said.

“But that’s fine – you’d rather have them there than not have them. If you have them, it means you are winning games, and going far in tournaments. It’s a great challenge for us – we don’t see it as a threat.

“It is something that we embrace, and we look forward to. Obviously, you don’t have a great deal of coaching time – it’s about player-recovery. But it just means the squad will really come to the fore over the next few months.

“Obviously we have a team of people here that monitor that aspect very closely. I’ve brought in a top group of players and we have staff members that look at them in the minutest detail, in terms of how we can maximise their performance.”

Nir Bitton and Mikael Lustig have returned from international duty with knocks that will be assessed before Saturday’s game against Motherwell.

Meanwhile, Rodgers has insisted that Scotland might need to lower their expectation levels as they seek to mould a team capable of getting back to a major international tournament.

“I read some stuff that Scotland should be going to Slovakia and winning comfortably but why?” asked Rodgers. “They have good players as well so it’s tough and I have empathy for Gordon Strachan.

“The manager always gets criticised but he should be one of the last ones.

“Three is a deep rooted issue here, there’s a problem which needs looking at.

“I have empathy but I need to be here a bit longer to have an overview of everything. What I would say is that where do Scotland expect to be?

“Where do you expect to be as a nation? It’s certainly not where it was a number of years ago when you were qualifying for World Cups and had some of the best players in Europe.

“It’s about asking, right, where are we? That might hurt, it may be sore.”