Brendan Rodgers confident Celtic will be in ‘good place’ in semi against Rangers

Brendan Rodgers is optimistic his Celtic side will arrive at Hampden Park to take on Rangers in more fluent form after booking a Premier Sports Cup semi-final meeting with their rivals.

The holders were handed another Glasgow derby shortly after beating Partick Thistle 4-0 at Firhill in the quarter-finals.

Motherwell will take on St Mirren in the other last-four clash, with the matches to be played on the weekend of November 1-2.

Celtic have not beaten Rangers in four games since winning on penalties after a 3-3 draw in last year’s final, and their most recent meeting was a drab goalless encounter at Ibrox on August 31.

Rodgers said: “Whatever team you play in the semi-final, going to Hampden, I think that was important for us to get back there.

“There are a lot of games between now and then and hopefully we can build the rhythm and keep growing and arrive in a good place for the semi.

“I said it at the time, for both teams, Ibrox wasn’t a great game, to be honest. My only worry is Celtic, but we weren’t in our best place, even though in other times, if you go to Ibrox and you get a point, it might be deemed okay.

“For me, it was just about trusting the team and trusting how we work. More importantly, trusting the players, which I do, and I can see the fluency starting to arrive.”

Rangers earned their semi-final place with a much-needed 2-0 win over Hibernian on Saturday having dropped to 11th in the William Hill Premiership earlier in the day.

The other semi-final sees Stephen Robinson take his St Mirren side to Hampden to take on his former club Motherwell.

Robinson led Well to two semi-final wins in the 2017/18 season before twice losing in finals against Rodgers’ Celtic.

St Mirren, the 2013 winners, booked their first semi-final since 2020/21 when they beat Kilmarnock on penalties on Friday.

Motherwell kept alive their hopes of taking the League Cup trophy back to Fir Park for the first time in 75 years when they booked their second consecutive semi-final with a 1-0 win at Aberdeen.