Brendan Rodgers addresses two Celtic transfer 'targets' as boss firmly dismisses pre-season panic

Brendan Rodgers insists there’s no pre-season panic despite his creaky Celtic shipping six goals in Yokohama.

The Hoops boss admitted his undercooked stars suffered in the searing heat in Japan in the 10-goal thriller against local cracks F Marinos. Daizen Maeda blasted a stunning first half hat-trick but the hosts came out on top 6-4 in a chaotic pre-season dust-up. Rodgers insisted he’s not worried about some of the dodgy defending – and admitted it was hard going after hopping time zones and then running into a side in the middle of their league campaign in blistering 30 degree temperatures.

The Parkhead boss said: “If we won 5-0 it wouldn’t have mattered either. The priority is getting the players ready for when it matters. It’s quite a hard ask for the players to arrive late on the Monday, adapt to the time and then play in that heat against a very good team who are well into the season. We had some very good moments in the game and scored some good goals.

“We gave away poor goals I wouldn’t expect us to be losing later on in pre-season. It’s still a period we are developing the structure and the fitness. It was a really good exercise for us. It was always going to be a challenge, firstly from a physical perspective.”

The Celtic backline were guilty of some calamitous defending against the J League challengers – and keeper Joe Hart was to blame for gifting Marinos an early opener. Rodgers refused to hammer the shot stopper – but also stopped short of giving any assurances the former England star would be his no.1 this season.

There have been questions surrounding Hart’s place with Celts linked with several keepers in the last couple of weeks. And Rodgers insisted he’s still to make his mind up over a number of