Brendan Rodgers knows that any team needs to show good organisation, togetherness and personality if it wants to be successful, and he’s seen those traits in his team over the past couple of weeks.

The Celtic squad have faced adversity in their last two games, going down to nine men against Feyenoord and then losing goalkeeper, Joe Hart, in the weekend clash with Livingston.

And the manager has been pleased with how his players have responded on both occasions, though that is not something which has happened by chance.

Speaking at Lennoxtown today (Thursday), Brendan Rodgers said: “I prioritise quality football in terms of the work and over the course of the summer and the early parts of the season, the transfer window and everything, there was probably that feeling of maybe a little bit of instability.

“Now the team has taken a really big mental step forward and you see that in how they’re performing – the determination, the intensity, the quality is starting to move forward to the levels that I would want it to get to. And that’s always the beginning of a really good team.

'So I’m really happy with the progress we’re making day on day, but we have to keep working and we have to keep working very hard.'

“Like I said, my priority in my career and my body work has always been about the quality of our football, and that’s quality of football to win games. And we’re starting to see that now.

“The one thing I’ve always said is that we won’t unravel mentally if we go down to 10 men. Why? Because the guys will understand what it is they have to do, and that’s what they did, both against Feyenoord and then against Livingston.

“Now, we don’t want to make a habit of it, that’s for sure, but I think, with the greatest respect, the three sendings-off weren’t malicious, they weren’t discipline issues. It was decisions that were made by referees.

“So we have to accept that and very quickly, we have to have the plan in terms of what it is, of what happens next.

'When you have that, you saw against Livingston the stability of the team. They stayed calm, they stayed in control.'

“I mentioned it before, I like my teams to play aggressive and be fast and dynamic and create lots of opportunities, but I don’t like the team to be flying by the seat of their pants.

“It needs to be in control and organised, so the players demonstrated that last week brilliantly and we’ll move on to our next game now and look to put in a good performance, hopefully with 11 men.”

Watch Brendan Rodgers’ full press conference below:

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Manager: We're showing the traits of a really good team