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No, Celtic didn’t learn anything new from the midweek match at Pittodrie.

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How many more times is the media going to ask Brendan Rodgers stuff about other clubs and their games?

How many times are they going to lob that same, tired question at him, the one where everyone knows what he’s going to say?

Did he watch the game between Aberdeen and the Ibrox club? No, he was busy that night. Celtic had their own game to focus on. Has he watched it since? No, because he already knows how good Aberdeen are. They came to Celtic Park, went 2-0 down, and still walked away with a draw.

Why on Earth would Rodgers need to watch their match with the Ibrox club?

Because, apparently, beating them is now the yardstick?

Not quite. If you come to our home and manage to leave with a point after going down two goals, you’ve already proven you’re serious opposition.

Or are we only meant to take Aberdeen seriously now that they’ve put one over on our rivals?

Kilmarnock did that too, not more than a week ago.

How seriously should we take them when we play them next?

It’s just unbelievable. No wonder Rodgers sometimes looks at our media as if they’ve lost the plot.

No wonder he fields their questions with thinly-veiled exasperation. When they ask things like this, they show just how daft they are.

The media drives me up the wall with this kind of nonsense.

Every story, every narrative, framed through an Ibrox-centric lens.

Aberdeen have been excellent this season, winning all but one of their games—against us at Celtic Park.

Rodgers has seen enough of them to know what they’re capable of. The idea that he would have somehow learned something new, some “groundbreaking insight,” from watching them play midweek is absurd.

As Rodgers pointed out, our analysts already know everything they need to about Aberdeen.

They’ve done the homework and prepped for this match. Nothing from that midweek game was going to change our approach. Our side is fully prepared for the game tomorrow, and we would have been prepared whether Aberdeen beat the Ibrox club or not.

Rodgers handled the press deftly, as he always does.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not tired of it, or bored, or frustrated.

Moments like these, he just wants to focus on our team and our next match.

You’d think the press might have picked that up by now.

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James Forrest has been the editor of The CelticBlog for 13 years. Prior to that, he was the editor of several digital magazines on subjects as diverse as Scottish music, true crime, politics and football. He ran the Scottish football site On Fields of Green and, during the independence referendum, the Scottish politics site Comment Isn't Free. He's the author of one novel, one book of short stories and one novella. He lives in Glasgow.

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