BRENDAN Rodgers has received assurances about the length of the grass on the Murrayfield pitch ahead of the Betfred Cup semi-final between Celtic and Hearts - after meeting the stadium groundsman last week.

Rodgers was scathing about the playing surface at Tynecastle after a Ladbrokes Premiership game in May and accused the Edinburgh club of deliberately not cutting it to give them an advantage. He claimed it was “not football” and revealed he had been “embarrassed” by it.

But he is confident this afternoon’s last four encounter in the capital, which will be played on the same Desso GrassMaster pitch used by Premier League clubs Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United, will be an entertaining spectacle.

The Celtic manager spoke to head groundsman Jim Dawson and his assistant on Tuesday when the defending champions took part in a training session at Murrayfield.

“It’ll hopefully make for a good game,” Rodgers said. “The pitch will be 105m long and 68m wide. That’s the same size as Hampden.”

Asked about the grass, he said: “It’ll be down to 24 (millimetres) which is Uefa guidelines size and which just happens to be the exact same size as Celtic. So it’s a nice big pitch and it’s football.

“I spoke to the groundsman at Murrayfield and they’ve got standards as well. They have top groundstaff, the pitch is superb and they want a showcase game too.

“One was from Falkirk and the other is a Raith fan. I had a good chat with both of them. They’re neutrals and they want the best pitch.

“I always congratulate them (groundsmen) on their pitches if I bump into them. The Motherwell guy, his pitch has been great. Dundee the same.

“I spoke to the guys when they were working on the pitch when we were training there on Tuesday. It would be ignorant not to talk to them, right? I was just asking them what size they thought the pitch would be - and how long the grass would be!”

Rodgers is confident the game will turn out differently to Celtic’s last meeting with Hearts at Tynecastle when they slumped to a 1-0 defeat.

“We lost the game, but we could easily have won,” he said. “We made a mistake and, to be fair, Kyle Lafferty scored a fantastic goal. But this here is a totally different game. We’re in a half-decent rhythm now, we’re much more efficient. It’ll still be tough, though.”