The Celtic manager is a chess grandmaster as Rangers boss edges ever closer to checkmate – Keith Jackson

In less than two weeks’ time they’ll come together on the south side of Glasgow.

But, although Brendan Rodgers and Philippe Clement will share the same postcode for an afternoon on the touchline at Hampden Park, these two managers are now co-existing in two completely different worlds. If such a thing is even possible. And for the time being at least.

On Saturday, Rodgers saw his long term vision for Celtic being realised and coming together in front of his eyes. Having spent so much of his first season back in town banging on about the need for his squad to be reinforced with ‘quality’ additions, he must have felt as if this first half disemboweling of Ross County was a moment of vindication.

It’s what he had in his mind’s eye from the start. The manpower required to fight on two fronts, in the Champions League and in the domestic game, without skipping a beat.

Better still, to be able to make wholesale changes to his starting XI and to find that these tweaks and alterations might actually improve the energy and intensity of his side’s performance rather than heighten the risk of a drop off. Rodgers swapped out a total of six players from the team he selected to face Bruges on Wednesday night and four of these so called second stringers - Liam Scales, Luke McCowan, Paulo Bernardo and Adam Idah - had got themselves on the scoresheet before County had made it inside to the sanctuary of the dressing room at the interval.

This was wrecking ball stuff from the champions and rock solid proof Rodgers is a manager in complete and utter control, not only of his own team and its destiny but also of the direction his football club is moving in.

His plan for Celtic is now crystalising and his reputation is being re-established and