Brendan Rodgers urges Celtic to ‘avoid the noise’ before Old Firm showdown with Rangers

The Hoops are five points clear at the top of the cinch Premiership but their city rivals have two games in hand and are heading to Celtic Park buoyed by a 17-game unbeaten run.

This weekend's derby has clear potential to impact the dynamic of the title race going into the new year.

But Northern Ireland-born Celtic manager Rodgers has urged his team to ensure they do not get distracted by the pre-match hype.

"Avoid the noise if you can," he said in an interview with Celtic TV.

"It's something I've always tried to do myself and I would say the same to players even though it's hard because a lot of them are on social media and there is a lot of noise around the game.

"But we're looking forward to it. These final days when you're preparing, it's just about getting the focus and concentration right...we'll be ready."

Saturday's derby will be Celtic's eighth match in December and Rodgers is hoping his injury-hit squad can rouse themselves for their final two matches - Rangers at home and then Tuesday's trip to St Mirren - before they get a chance to regroup in the winter break.

"It's been a very, very long month," said the Celtic boss. "We've played a lot of games this month and with a number of players out injured, others have had to play more.

"But we're down to two games now.

"We're off the back of two good performances (against Livingston and Dundee) and we want to finish with two good performances and results and then we can recover a little bit, reflect and get ready for the next part of the season."

Celtic lost back-to-back league matches against Kilmarnock and Hearts earlier this month to allow Rangers to close the gap in the title race, but Rodgers is heartened that they are able to go into the derby on the back of consecutive victories over Livingston and Dundee in which he felt his team played well.

"For me it was also about the performance levels which were more where I would want them to be," said Rodgers. "In the Livingston game we had lots of pressure, scored goals and had other chances.

“But, importantly, we virtually didn't give anything away and the same with Dundee.

"Dundee away on Boxing Day, it's always going to be a challenging game, they've had a very, very good season, but we totally dominated the game.

"We suffocated the pitch, created lots of opportunities, scored three really good goals. From a performance perspective the last two were much more where I want us to be.

"I think when you work as hard as the team do and have done, then it bodes well.

"It's all based around the performance. You know when you've played well and I think over the last couple of games, the tempo's been quicker, with more intensity to our game. And when we play to that level, we can win many games."