BRENDAN Rodgers has hit back at claims that Celtic have made a disappointing start to the season because their squad is divided and insisted that form will improve.

The double treble winners lost their second Ladbrokes Premiership game of the season on Sunday when Kilmarnock came from behind to beat them 2-1 at Rugby Park.

The Parkhead club are now in sixth place in the league table after six games and six points behind early leaders Hearts.

The Scottish champions also failed to reach the Champions League group stages for the third season running.

Kris Boyd, the Kilmarnock striker, suggested the poor performances are a result of disunity in the Celtic dressing room on BBC Radio Scotland on Monday night.

Boyd claimed that Dedryck Boyata and Olivier Ntcham, who were both denied the chance to move on during the transfer window, are no longer “bothered”.

But Rodgers, who accepted full responsibility for his side’s below par displays for the second time in three days, dismissed that accusation.

He responded to former Rangers player Boyd, who hasn’t started a game for Steve Clarke’s side in over a month, with a dig of his own.

“Kris is probably best suited trying to get himself into the Kilmarnock team and get back playing and we will concentrate on our own job in here,” he said.

“When teams lose games the logic used to be and clearly still is, there is a split in the dressing room. For us, we are very much unified as a club.

“We set such a high standard over these last couple of seasons. Yes, we haven’t started as well as we wanted in our season, but we are very much together.

"It is something I am very calm with, we have a blueprint which is very stable in terms of the way we play football and normally when we execute that which we have shown we have a winning strategy.

“Sometimes we won't win games and we have to accept that. There is bit of heat that comes with that but what is very important is that you stay calm and unified and that is very much what we are.

"We are not perfect. We have had an invincible season. You are not invincible for ever. We are certainly a very talented group which will get back to the level over the course of the season and at the end of the season we will be judged in our work.”

Rodgers, whose side take on St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park tonight in the quarter-final of the Betfred Cup, reiterated his view that the defeats to Hearts and Kilmarnock were down to him making too many changes.

“The two games we have lost, I take total responsibility for,” he said. “I have made big changes in those. Away at Hearts in preparation for a Champions League game I made a number of changes.

“Obviously at the game at the weekend I made more and then we had one enforce one which meant we had six changes.

“Now I trust all the players that come in, but maybe I changed too many players. I don’t expect us to lose that sort of stability, but if we did them of course I need to look at myself

“At this moment in time there has been periods when it has worked, but I take responsibility at the weekend 100 per cent.

“If I analyse over the two games I have lost in the league it probably comes on the number of changes I made thinking ahead to a game and looking to change the dynamic at the weekend.

“I take responsibility for that, but there have also been periods we have played well in. Has it been to the standards we set a couple of years ago? Not quite, but you have to stay calm.

“It is still very early on in the season. We have played six games and there is another 32 to go in terms of the league. We will get better and it is my responsibility to ensure we do.”