Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers says he has reminded his player that they will go down in history following their 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Hearts.

The Hoops smashed their own 100-year-old record when they surpassed 63 league games unbeaten, and saw it finally come to an end at 69 games after the defeat to Hearts.

It would have been hard for the players to take after years of total domestic dominance, but Rodgers admitted he thanked his players for their achievement and reminded them of the sheer brilliance of the achievement.

“Firstly, congratulations to Hearts, they were the better team today and deserved to win the game. I have said over many months, if the players weren’t human I would say they would never lose. It was always going to happen. It is not nice when it does,” said Rodgers.

“I wanted to pull the players together and let them be aware that they were better than us today and we have to accept that.

“What they have done is absolutely amazing but to use this feeling that they haven’t felt for 18 months, use it as a lever moving forward and let’s learn from it and be better for it.

“We are a bigger target because of what we have done, we accept that and now go and look to win our next game. My feeling is pride for the players. The run of 69 games comes to an end; a real historic achievement, remarkable.

“The players will go down in history because I am not sure it will be done again but certainly in our lifetimes it won’t be done and the players can take pride in that. I thanked them for that at the end.

“We made too many mistakes in the game to get anything out of it.

“Defensively we struggled. Hearts played a direct game which is fine and we failed to cope with Lafferty in the first period.

“He gave our two centre halves problems and you have to defend well to win a game.

“It is in the past now. We have to hit the reset button.”
[Quotes via Sky Sports]