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Brendan Rodgers says his Celtic stars are determined to extend their record domestic run

04/11/17 LADBROKES PREMIERSHIP
 ST JOHNSTONE v CELTIC (0-4) 
 MCDIARMID PARK - PERTH
 Celtic's Scott Brown with manager Brendan Rodgers
Image: Celtic's Scott Brown (L) and manager Brendan Rodgers confident run will continue

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers claims there is no way his players will take their foot off the gas on their record-breaking run - because they are "allergic" to complacency.

The Scottish champions made it 63 unbeaten domestic games with a 4-0 victory over St Johnstone in Perth - overtaking the record set by Willie Maley's Hoops side 100 years ago.

Celtic have not lost since Ronny Deila's penultimate match in charge in May 2016 - also at McDiarmid Park - but Rodgers has achieved the consistency with a similar squad: nine of Saturday's starting line-up were already at the club when the former Liverpool boss took over.

Celtic celebrate breaking the record for the longest unbeaten run in domestic competition by a British top-flight team
Image: Celtic celebrate breaking the British record for the longest unbeaten domestic run

The Northern Irishman has managed to instil a relentless approach to maintaining standards and he does not feel it will be difficult to avoid complacency.

"It's fairly simple, it's something I mentioned when I first came in: we need to be allergic to it and that's something we have created to the 17th month of working together," he said.

"I said it on the first day but it's something we have dedicated our lives to every single day, and that excellence of always looking to be better.

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"So this won't affect them in any way. It's important that they celebrate it. Any high-performing teams in sport, and football in particular, it's important to celebrate what they have done. But they also know the levels we set every day.

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"The beauty is this is a group that likes each other. They communicate, they work hard. You saw on Saturday, on a difficult surface, how comfortable and technical they were in taking the ball in situations and working their way through the pitch, and scoring great goals.

"But complacency is something we have trained to avoid and it's my job as the leader to ensure that it doesn't come in."

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Kris Boyd and Kris Commons give Celtic captain Scott Brown the quick-fire quiz

Long-serving Celtic captain Scott Brown paid tribute to the club's fans for creating a raucous atmosphere ahead of completing the feat in Perthshire.

"It's a great honour to captain this side and to come into training every day and play in front of our fans, who have been phenomenal from the first game all the way to the 63rd It showed in the atmosphere on Saturday and it was our fans who created it for 90 minutes," the 32-year-old midfielder said.

"We have a great squad. The gaffer chops and changes it but on Saturday it was the same team from Bayern Munich, which has not happened a lot since the gaffer has been in charge as he usually makes one or two changes and makes a change of formation.

"People may have thought we would have been tired but it was the complete opposite - we were looking forward to this game. It shows you our level of fitness in the last 10 or 15 minutes there.

"We played a great opponent during the week and we pushed ourselves all the way [here]."

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