‘CALM’ CELTS HAILED FOR WIN No.12

CELTIC boss Brendan Rodgers admitted he was impressed by his players for keeping their cool in the 1-0 win over Partick Thistle at Parkhead last night.

The Hoops, leading with a 16th-minute strike by Scott Sinclair, made it 12 successive Premiership victories to go 14 points ahead with a game in hand.

They are now only five away from matching the record-breaking feat of the Lisbon Lions who went 26 domestic games without defeat in the memorable 1966/67 season when, under the guidance of Jock Stein, they won everything, including the European Cup.

However, the latest triumph was one Rodgers’ men had to grind out to see off a troublesome Firhill team who caused a scare or two.

But Rodgers said: “It was a very good win for us, parts of the game were very good and other parts not so good, more so in the first-half than the second.

“We changed the team about in order to have that freshness and energy in our game and we probably didn’t press the game as much as I’d have liked in the first-half.

“We had a lot of the ball, but we weren’t compact enough as a team.

“In the second-half, we were much more aggressive and our disappointment is that we didn’t score more than one goal.

“When you have only one then it can always be edgy.

“But a huge amount of the credit to the players for staying calm towards the end, keeping the ball and keeping another clean sheet.”

The champions now face Hamilton Accies at the Super Seal stadium on Saturday, Christmas Eve, with a 12.30pm kick-off before hosting Ross County a week tonight and then Rodgers’ men bring down the curtain on the first half of the campaign with a Hogmanay encounter at Ibrox which will start at 12.15pm.