BRENDAN RODGERS last night admitted all his focus since clinching the title has been on defeating Rangers in the Scottish Cup semi-final.

The Parkhead boss made five changes to his team from Sunday for the 1-1 draw with Partick Thistle.

And he revealed not only did he want to give his players a rest, it was also tactically to do with building towards the clash at Hampden with Rangers on April 24.

Rodgers said: "After the weekend our next peak is the semi-final. So that's what we are building towards. This is why I needed to make the changes tonight.

"If I didn't make them tonight and I made them against Kilmarnock, and then we are building into the Ross County game and then the Rangers games, it might mean some players who are asked to play in the Rangers game, if they played tonight then were rested against Kilmarnock they would maybe have got one game in 18 days.

"You're always trying to gauge the momentum of your team and I thought this was the game to make the changes.

"But over the course of the next couple of games the team will be pretty stable to give us that momentum to hopefully arrive in a peak condition for the semi final."

Eboue Kouassi made his first start and Rodgers was happy with his player. Eventually.

The manager said: "He didn't start great, bless him. After the first five minutes I thought we had signed his brother.

"But he grew into the game and he started showing what he's been showing in training.

"Good mobility and getting around the pitch. I thought he did well after that little spell arriving into Scottish football."

Scott Sinclair opened the scoring just after half-time before Ade Azeez came up with an equaliser for Thistle.

Only a minute after that goal, Sinclair of all people missed a penalty on a night when honours were shared.

Rodgers said: "I thought it was probably a fair result in the end. I was actually really pleased believe it or not.

“We’ve come back from Sunday, how well we played, we clinched the title.. so to come into this game and make a number of changes so players get game-time, and you are playing against the second form team in Scotland, along with Aberdeen, so we knew it was going to be a difficult game for us.

“In the first-half we were excellent. We missed that incisive phase, we had possession and control, but I felt we have to make more movement behind their defensive line, but apart from that we were good in our shape.

“We had a good start to the second half. We had good movement from a throw-in and, as we spoke about, we got behind their defence and we get the goal.

“In games like this, at 1-1, it can get away from you because the other team has good form and confidence. We get the penalty and I haven’t seen Scotty miss a penalty since we were at Swansea and we played Manchester City; Joe Hart made a great save.

"I felt 1-1 was fair. If we take our chances in the second half we could win but in fairness to Partick and Alan they played well. He has done a great a job there and you have to give them credit.”