Brendan Rodgers will resist making wholesale changes for today’s game against Kilmarnock with Wednesday night’s UEFA Champions League meeting against Manchester City in mind.

It will be a strong Celtic side who host the Ayrshire club, with Rodgers keen to give the game his full attention.

And while the meeting against Pep Guardiola’s side this week is another daunting challenge for Celtic, Rodgers will look to build on the momentum that the Parkhead side have so far established to take them into the game.

“We made five changes but sometimes you can try and be too clever. I have been in situations before where you make nine, ten, eleven changes and then the team that are winning has lost rhythm and you lose flow in your game.

“We have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before the game on Wednesday so we get an extra day recovery. The most important game is the next one so we will be all out to get a result at home. Hopefully we can fill the stadium and get as many people there and put on a performance and give them a good win.

“From that we will recover and get ready for the next one.”

Rodgers made a few changes for the midweek meeting with Alloa, but it remained a strong squad who took to the field.

It will be a similar story today, although Leigh Griffiths’ return from injury will give Celtic additional options when it comes to Wednesday night, assuming that the striker comes through the game unscathed.

Rodgers was also keen to serve a reminder that Nadir Ciftci too is still at the club although he expects to utilise the size of the squad over the course of a season in which Celtic will play a significant number of games between domestic and European football.

“I have got Nadir, who is not involved, but who is working hard every day, and young Ryan Christie, who came into the game against Alloa and made a good impact, outside of that,” he said. “Of course, Griff when he's played and Moussa [Dembele] when he's played gives us options. That's what you want. If you are going to have a long season you are going to need that. That is the beauty of it, you need to have that ability to change. If somebody gets injured then you can put them in."

And Rodgers is also insistent that the League Cup is a tournament that Celtic will be going all out to win – although he was canny enough to resist looking to make it part of a domestic Treble.

“Alloa have a winning mentality – they have 18 points from 21 so they have a winning mentality and that can give you energy. So I wanted to give them respect and give the competition respect and also for me to show my players the intent. This isn’t a second-rate trophy, it is the first trophy available and we want to win it.”