Neil Lennon has praised the resolve and commitment of his players after they emerged from Ibrox with the destination of the title in their own hands.
Since taking over from Tony Mowbray 13 months ago Lennon has been told that his team fail to win the matches that matter.
Defeats to Ross County, Braga and Utrecht as well as losing the first derby of the season to Rangers in October gave the critics ammunition.
Since the turn of the year Lennon has taken his side to Ibrox three times without defeat and has a 90 minute record against Walter Smith of Won 4 Drew 3 and Lost 1.
With home advantage and on the back of four consecutive wins Rangers were the bookies favourites going into the match but it was the home goalkeeper, Allan McGregor that emerged as man-of-the-match.
The last five matches of the season will be unknown territory for the Celtic squad but after energing from Ibrox Lennon is confident that his players have the strength
“We are in a good place, we’re a wee bit disappointed that we didn’t win but we can take a lot of satisfaction from the way that we played,” the Celtic boss said. “They were strong today, we’ve come here before and got beaten up, there was none of that today.
“We withstood everything and came back stronger as the game went on, we opened the game up and defended set-pieces very well which is always a danger against Rangers.
“The players have had a lot of questions asked of them and they answered them today.
“We should have won. Their goalkeeper was the man of the match and that says it all about how we played, especially the second half.
“We grew into the game and dealt with everything that Rangers threw at us.
“We knew that they would come out strong and physical, but once the centre-halves got a grip of their centre-forwards we came more and more into the game.
“As the game went on we got stronger and they started to wilt, we were the better team in the second half and should have won the game”.
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