Brendan Rodgers sends brutal Celtic transfer message as he shows stars the exit door on one condition

Brendan Rodgers has told his Celtic stars to shape up or ship out if they can't handle the Hoops pressure.

His side face Motherwell on Sunday in a crucial clash. They are five points behind Rangers in first after the Light Blues thrashed Hearts 5-0 at Ibrox on Saturday, with the boss aware that Premiership victory in North Lanarkshire is paramount.

They drew 1-1 with Kilmarnock last weekend which allowed their rivals to leapfrog them. Rodgers is up for the fight though and has challenged his stars to rise to that expectation of winning trophies too.

Failure to reach those heights will lead to one destination - the exit door. The Celtic manager said: "I’ll be fine. For me it’s about 38 games over a season. I’ve heard throughout my career that I’ve never had this before and never had that before.

"That’s normal - but it’s not my story. If you can’t handle pressure, especially at the biggest clubs - those aren’t the clubs for you. Go away, there’s plenty of clubs for you where it’s like a holiday. You play one game a week and there’s no drama.

“If you draw a couple of games and win eight, you’ll be held up there. But with the biggest clubs, that’s part of the deal. You have to be able to deal with playing home and away here.

"In my experience of Celtic Park, it has been an amazing place to play. For players coming here, it’s great when you look on YouTube and see 60,000 fans singing You’ll Never Walk Alone or Champions League nights. But in the small print it says, by the way, there’s big pressure. Deal with it.

“You have to accept that as a Celtic player. You can prepare and can create an illusion for them of what it might be and might feel like. But not until you actually feel it yourself and go through the process, do you really understand it.

“That’s why I have huge admiration for players who come here. Because the expectations are so high, as high as anywhere I’ve ever been in my career.

“That’s why I’m always keen to support the players and bring them through that. Every man and his dog will criticise them now. It’s my job to help these players, especially when a lot of them are still young.

“This is a journey for them, to come through to be a Celtic player. It’s all about time. It’s difficult for any player or manager to come into a club where the expectations are absolutely huge, if you’ve never felt or sensed anything like that before.

“At a club like this, that comes onto you pretty quickly. Then you have to get through that. So this is all part of a phase of players getting used to that expectation.”