Brendan Rodgers will look to utilise the psychological advantage Celtic gleaned from the 5-1 win over Rangers last month as the teams prepare to square up again at Hampden tomorrow afternoon.

Mark Warburton’s side were humbled when a Moussa Dembele hat-trick contributed to an emphatic Celtic win and the Hoops will look to use any scars that have yet to heal from that afternoon at Celtic Park.

“From our perspective, we’re focusing on it being another game but when you play as well as we did in that game, it helps psychologically,” said Rodgers. “When you’ve scored five and you could have had more and play that we did then you know that you can beat the team well.

“It doesn’t necessarily make it any easier but you know that you’ve done it. But it’s a different game, a semi-final. We know that if we play as well again we’ll have a great chance of getting through to the final.

“When you perform to that level psychologically it gives you big confidence. But we only made that victory because of the hard work we put in and that can’t let up at the weekend.”

While Rodgers believes that Celtic have proved themselves to be the better team, he expects it to be a far tighter game this time around at Hampden.

It will also be a different Rangers team that Celtic find themselves up against with Joey Barton still suspended from the club and Niko Kranjcar out with a knee injury.

“I expect it to be a tight game and you prepare for it to be that way,” said Rodgers. “Fundamentally you have to be super-organised in terms of how you defend and then we know we have the game and we have the players that can really hurt the opponent.

“I can only judge them on the last time we played against them and we played very well. They’ve obviously got one or two changes now within the team. When you win the way we did in the last game it creates a big motivation for the opponents for it not to happen again, but both teams will go into the game looking to get the victory.”

The size of the defeat and the manner of the performance when the teams met earlier this season would suggest a significant chasm between Celtic and Rangers, but Rodgers was reluctant to comment on where he believes the Hoops are in comparison to their rivals judged on that result.

“That’s not for me to say - that’s for you to write or those who are watching to decide,” he said. “We can only win the game as we do and how the measure is not a worry for me. If we win 1-0, I’d be happy.”