Brendan Rodgers tells Celtic stars what they must do in Rangers build-up as 'noise' binned for 2 derby necessities

Brendan Rodgers has told his Celtic team to switch off from the noise and get their minds fixed on the task at hand against Rangers.

The champions may head into the derby on Saturday at Parkhead top of the Premiership, following wins over Livingston and Dundee in their last two outings. But stumbles against Motherwell, Kilmarnock and Hearts have allowed Rangers back into the title race and they head to Glasgow's east-end five points behind but with two games in hand.

Build-up is approaching fever-pitch but Rodgers has a simple command for his dressing room - ignore it. What should come first is a steely vision of what they want to achieve. He told Celtic TV: "Avoid the noise if you can. It is something I have always tried to do myself and I would say the same to players. Even though it is hard as a lot of them are social media and there is a lot of noise around the game.

"But whatever it is, we will look forward to it and ready. These final days when you are preparing is about getting that focus and concentration right on the game. We will be focused and ready for that.

"In the Livingston game we had lots of pressure, scored goals and had other chances. But, importantly, we virtually didn’t give anything away and the same with Dundee. Dundee away on Boxing Day, it’s always going to be a challenging game, they’ve had a very, very good season, but we totally dominated the game.

“We suffocated the pitch, created lots of opportunities, scored three really good goals. From a performance perspective the last two were much more where I want us to be.

“I think when you work as hard as the team do and have done, then it bodes well that when you get that success, the confidence will come. It’s all based around the performance.