Brendan Rodgers expects Celtic to keep Craig Gordon despite Chelsea interest

Brendan Rodgers expects Craig Gordon to stay at Celtic beyond the closure of the January transfer window despite interest from Chelsea.

The Stamford Bridge side had a bid for the Scotland international rejected on Friday and he then kept a clean sheet in Sunday's 4-0 Scottish Premiership win over Hearts.

It remains to be seen if Chelsea will come back with another offer for Gordon, but Rodgers is more focused on retaining him and securing the player on a new deal.

He said: "He's very much a part of what we're trying to do here. There's no way I can replace a player of that quality and how he has developed over the last six months has been fantastic.

"I really want him here and to get him to a new deal then we can keep continuing and move the whole club forward.

"There will probably be no outs (before the window closes). We've sent a couple of younger players on loan but I think the squad of players will be the one we have through to the end of the season.

"We obviously wanted to get one or two in but it's not always down to ourselves. There's no doubt I want to strengthen but it might not be in this window."

Celtic's victory against Hearts saw them set a new club record for domestic games unbeaten from the start of a season.

The match was their 27th game without losing since the campaign began almost six months ago, eclipsing the total of 26 matches set by the Celtic team which won the European Cup in 1966/67.

Rodgers added: "If you look over the course of the great history of this club - and this is a club that has a history - for the players to have broken that record held by such a great team was great.

"We're very proud to do that. I said to the players afterwards we have to keep pushing. We've broken it, you stand on your own now. We have to keep going and win as many games as we can.

"Thankfully I've got a group of players here who have bought into everything we're trying to do. Hopefully we can continue this great run."

Hearts head coach Ian Cathro rued the margin of defeat at the end of a match which leaves him still with just one win in six Premiership matches since he replaced Robbie Neilson.

He said: "We said at the start we wanted to be able to go toe to toe and play against Celtic here. We tried to do that and at certain points we did quite well.

"Our pressure at times was positive for us. There are always points in games here where you have to defend - we were playing a good team that knows how to move the ball.

"I don't see a 4-0 game here. It could have started to swing the other way as it was in the play but that's football."