MANCHESTER -- Brendan Rodgers believes it will take time for Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola to get used to the intensity of the Premier League.
Guardiola enjoyed huge success with previous clubs Barcelona and Bayern Munich before joining City in the summer but his side are four points behind leaders Chelsea, who won 3-1 at the Etihad on Saturday.
Former Liverpool manager Rodgers, who takes his Celtic side to City for a Champions League clash on Tuesday night, says Guardiola will not have faced the same challenge in La Liga or the Bundesliga.
"It's just going to take time -- he won't have had before the level of competition that it's in the Premier League," Rodgers told a news conference.
"It's not Bayern Munich where there's two or three teams in Germany and the rest you expect to win. And it's not the same either in Spain where you've got a few clubs. Here, it's every single week in the Premier League where you get challenged. There's never an easy game.
"I'm sure very quickly into his reign he will have seen that."
Rodgers believes that Guardiola has already made an impact on City but says it may take him a number of years to get the team that he is totally happy with.
"I think it's just going to take Pep that wee bit of time to impose the game that he wants," he added. "I think he's done brilliant since he's come in. He really is a top class manager, he's proven that.
"But the Premier League is different but in order for him to really impose his style, he'll be looking to get a few more players in that can really function and provide the foundations to how he wants to work.
"I've played against City for a number of years but I can see the difference he's made in terms of their intensity -- their ability to work, the flexibility in their system, how they can play. There's no doubt he's had a huge influence already."
Meanwhile, Celtic winger Patrick Roberts, who is in the middle of an 18-month loan spell from City, could face his parent club in the final Group C clash, which won't have any bearing on the final group stages.
Rodgers says the 19-year-old should be praised for his decision to go out on loan to get game time at Celtic Park and believes City will see the benefit from it.
"He's a big talent," said Rodgers. "First of all it's big applause to him as a young player he could easily have sat in at Manchester City and hoped for some game time. But after six months he realised he needed to play games and gain the experience.
"If you come out of Manchester City you want to test and measure a young player -- you want to put them in an environment where they're under pressure.
"Him coming to Celtic he was always going to get that -- a club that looks to win every game. He's been a joy to work with and he's a fantastic talent.
"He'll come back in the summer and I'm sure Pep and his staff will look at him and hopefully they'll see he's a better idea of the game tactically."