Brendan Rodgers expects Jozo Simunovic and Moussa Dembele to be back in Celtic’s starting line-up for Saturday’s meeting against Rangers, while Dedryck Boyata will stay in the starting XI for the weekend.

Simunovic missed the 4-0 win over Dundee last night in the Betfred League Cup quarter-final with a swollen knee while Dembele did not feature after playing for an hour on Saturday afternoon.

However, Rodgers expects that both will be fit in time for the visit to Ibrox.

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We will see how Jozo is,” said the Celtic manager. “He had a bit of swelling on his knee.

“The medics tell me he should be fine but we didn’t want to aggravate it any more.

“I would have no doubts about putting Dedryck in. He’s been working hard.

“Moussa will be back on Saturday.

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“Sometimes when you have midweek games, you play and then recover and don’t do a lot of physical work in between.

“We had to make a decision – come out of working hard in training to play for an hour, or stay behind and get four good sessions?

“That’s what we did. Moussa has had a good week and will be ready for Saturday.”

Meanwhile, Rodgers has also praised the contribution of James Forrest.

The winger netted a brace last night to take his tally to seven for the season and Rodgers has applauded the Scotland internationalist’s workrate.

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“He's really improving his numbers, that's what his job is,” said the Hoops boss.

“Firstly, defensively, he's working very hard and his pressing and tactical ideas about the game are improving.

“But he's also got great quality with both feet. His first goal, he comes on the inside and finishes really well.

“His second, young Odsonne Edouard plays him a nice pass early, he works his feet and gets the shot off.

“So they were two very good goals in a very good performance by him.

“It's the mark of the team that we kept going for the goals.

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“I always tell them to never leave the game early, to stay concentrated.”

And Rodgers was satisfied that such was the dominant nature of Celtic’s display that they could afford to take a breather when they had the ball.

“If you are going to rest in a game, rest with the football,” he said.

“It’s a lot harder when you don’t have the ball and you need to chase it.

“We were able to drop our lines out and Dundee then had to press. We had good numbers in our half to keep it.

“If they did press, we were able to get out of it.

“We conserved the ball very well and that opened it up for us later on.”