Brendan Rodgers 'really pleased' with performance as Celtic fight back for Ibrox draw with Rangers

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers was satisfied with his side’s performance against Rangers as they bounced back from a goal down to draw 1-1 in the season’s final Old Firm game.

Cyriel Dessers had put the hosts ahead just before half time but Adam Idah scored in the second half to make sure the visitors had a share of the points and maintained the gap at the top of the table.

With the Premiership title already secured, both teams were playing for pride, but Celtic had lost their previous two matches against their rivals, with Rodgers having felt the players had been “too comfortable” in those defeats because of their domestic dominance.

He was content with the performance this time and said that there were only some areas where the team could have been sharper.

“Maybe in the final third of the pitch we were just short today in certain passes and making the final pass,” Rodgers said.

“Overall I thought we had really good control of the game. We probably should go one up and then from that we go behind in the game just before half-time, so it’s not a great time to concede

“But I said to the players, listen, they’ve done a lot of really good things, we’ve just got to keep our rhythm, keep passing, keep the control in the game and hopefully eventually the goal will come.

“I am really pleased for Adam (Idah), he was a good reference for the team today.

“I felt that we were the team with control, and with our playing through that, we felt we could maybe get something late on.

“Because normally you come here, you normally have 10-15 minutes where you’re really hanging on, but I never felt we had that today.

“But yeah, pleased that if you can’t win it then of course you don’t want to lose it, so the players were really good.”

Celtic did have a chance to claim all three points when Daizen Maeda raced clear in the final seconds but was denied by Rangers goalkeeper Liam Kelly. Rodgers said it was close but he was not going to criticise his top scorer after a tiring week.

“Yeah, we have to give him a bit of leeway,” Rodgers said.

“He’d been in Japan all week; he had his first training day with us yesterday. He flew expecting his wife to have their third child, and she didn’t have it, so we had to come back and then come into a game here at Ibrox.

“It’s one of those tough ones, you look at it and you analyse it, he’s through in goal. What can he do? He can toe poke it, can he get around the keeper? But in fairness to Liam, he’s done well, he’s had a good spread on it, and I’m not sure Daizen can get it square for us to finish.

“But it just shows you we kept going right to the very end, the will was there to score, to fight, to run, and yeah, it was pleasing, especially the second half.”