Rodgers hails rotated Celtic as Maeda inspires cup rout of Raith Rovers

Brendan Rodgers said Celtic’s 5-0 win over Raith Rovers vindicated his decision to rotate his squad as the Scottish Cup holders cruised into the quarter-finals.

Daizen Maeda scored a hat-trick as Celtic crushed second-tier Raith on Saturday, with Luke McCowan and Yang Hyun-Jun also netting.

Maeda’s treble took him to 21 goals for the season in all competitions, as Celtic stretched their unbeaten home run to 32 matches.

The Bhoys’ success came despite Rodgers changing nine players from the side that trounced Dundee 6-0 in the Scottish Premiership on Wednesday.

“Over the years, you can get caught out with fixtures like these. We’ve lost games like that before but I think you can only tip your hat to the players’ professionalism,” Rodgers told Premier Sports.

“We set some objectives for the game because we’re a team that was expected to win, we should win, but there were other things we looked for in the performance and the players delivered.”

A hat-trick from Daizen Maeda puts us into the hat for the next round!

A strong performance from the Celts #CELRAI | #ScottishCup | #CelticFC pic.twitter.com/wzEr3g62MK

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) February 8, 2025

Jota, Adam Idah and Reo Hatate were among the players to drop out of Celtic’s lineup, but Rodgers never had any misgivings about those coming in.

“People will say, ‘making nine changes, why do you do that?’ Well, I do it because I trust the team and I can do it, that’s the beauty of it,” he continued.

“We’ve rotated this year to keep players fit and strong and sometimes I haven’t wanted to rotate, but I know I have to, to maintain the freshness and energy in the team.”

Celtic are next in action against Bayern Munich in the first leg of their Champions League knockout-stage play-off on Wednesday.