Celtic in 'best place' ahead of Champions League opener - Brendan Rodgers

Brendan Rodgers feels more ready than ever to lead his Celtic side into a Champions League campaign.

The 51-year-old will begin his fourth group stage campaign with Celtic when they host Slovan Bratislava (live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player) on Wednesday night.

Rodgers has secured only two wins in 18 group games over two spells in charge, against Anderlecht first time round and Feyenoord in the final game of last season.

Although Celtic drew twice with Manchester City in 2016-17, when they went through the domestic season unbeaten, they suffered heavy defeats by Barcelona and Paris St Germain over two seasons before losing to AEK Athens in the qualifiers.

Having taken time to adjust to the departure of Ange Postecoglou and several key players last season, Celtic have picked up where they left off from a strong finish to last term and look more proficient with their pressing.

Celtic have begun their William Hill Premiership season with five wins, 14 goals and five clean sheets from five matches and with record signing Arne Engels on target on Saturday.

"There's absolutely no doubt, this feels like the most ready I’ve been as a Celtic manager coming into a Champions League campaign," Rodgers said.

"Naturally because of the qualification phase (in his first spell) and the doubt around all of that and trying to get players in later on the back of that, and last season coming in, trying to find out about players and managing them through that and seeing them in the competition…

"But having had a year under my belt back here and seeing all the players and being able to improve a lot of the areas that I want, there’s still areas that we want to improve in, but certainly the readiness is a great word.

"I think that feeling of arriving at