Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers says he wants other clubs in Scotland to progress in Europe and not only his own side, after Rangers and St Johnstone crashed out at the first hurdle this week.

Rodgers maintains that his top priority is always Celtic, but he admits that he would love to not be the only club carrying the saltire into the group stages of European competition this season and into the future.

He now hopes though that both his own side and the only other Scottish representative left in Europe – Aberdeen – can do their bit to help salvage the country’s pride, and help boost the co-efficient once more.

“For Celtic we create our own standards, we’re not reliant on another club or someone else, we have to set our own benchmark,” Rodgers said.

“But, of course, the bigger picture, my feel is for Scotland because I want Scotland to do well and have teams not just a team but have teams that can go in and represent.

“Scotland for over many years has been a wonderful football nation, that’s produced many great players and many great managers. So, it’s clearly been a hotbed for football but there is a problem, there is an issue.

“And the only way you do that is by getting your teams progressing and doing well in European football, as well as domestic football.

“Of course, you need to do well domestically to get the opportunity for Europe.

“You cannot control every other team but it would be nice, of course, for the co-efficient to be at a much higher level than it’s at. But you have to win.”

While Rodgers doesn’t claim to hold the answers to our nation’s footballing woes, he doesn’t think that starting the season earlier is the solution.

“It is difficult. I don’t know, how early can you start?” he said.

“If your season finishes on May 27 and you start on June 19, how early can you start. Rangers had a month didn’t they and they still went out.

“But it’s not even a month, if you’re in the south or other nations you’re 46-weeks.

“We’ll be three weeks and we’re into a Champions League qualifier, how early can you start? I don’t think you can start any earlier to give the boys the recovery and also the mental recovery, they need to have some sort of time.

“Some of our boys have had literally ten days, the most any player had was three weeks.”

Rodgers was speaking in Dublin as he takes his side to face Shamrock Rovers in a friendly this afternoon.

He says the exercise is more about fitness than preparing his men for what awaits them against Linfield in Friday’s Champions League qualifier at Windsor Park in Belfast.

”We’re only a couple of weeks into our pre-season,” he said. “Of course, we’re into the competitive games much quicker than is the norm but we’re still in a process of building up our fitness but the players are getting there day by day and game by game.

“We were looking for a nice little test at this period of the season and we spoke to Shamrock Rovers to see if we could come over and play, so gratefully they have accepted us coming over and we know they are midway through their season, so they are going to be in a good physical condition.

“It’s a nice game for us.”