Sunday Round-Up: Thoughts On The Win Over Hibs

THE BIG STORY: Celtic defeated Hibs 4-2 yesterday’s Betfred Cup semi-final at Hampden - read our match report and player ratings - and Brendan Rodgers was delighted with the win, coming as it did only three days after the Champions League game against Bayern Munich.

Rodgers lauded the players ‘tremendous resilience’ in not only overcoming the rigours of the Bayern game but also a terrible penalty decision which let Hibs back into the game. He admitted the decision affected Celtic’s ‘composure’ but was pleased that the players overcame this to kill the game.

One of the star men yesterday was Moussa Dembele, who came off the bench to score two goals, and the player believes he is ‘back to my best’ after a stop start opening to the season. No disrespect to Leigh Griffiths but Dembele is a far better striker who should start Wednesday’s match against Aberdeen.

Photo by Steve Welsh/Getty Images

An unexpected hero was two goal Mikael Lustig, who said after the game that the players were happy to be playing so soon after the Munich defeat so they could get the result out of their system.

Celtic will find out who our Betfred Cup Final opponents on the 26th of November are later today as Rangers take on Motherwell in the other semi-final.

OTHER NEWS: We haven’t seen a Celtic played linked with a move away for a while but fear not, reports are suggesting that Tottenham were ‘scouting’ Kieran Tierney against Bayern Munich on Wednesday. I’m relatively confident in stating that ‘KT’ will stay at Celtic for another good few years yet.

ON THIS DAY: In 2013, Celtic defeated Ajax 2-1 at Celtic Park in a Champions League Group Stage clash, a James Forrest penalty and a deflected Beram Kayal earning Celtic what would be our only win in the Group Stages in 2013.

In 1988 goals from Mark McGhee and Frank McAvennie gave Celtic a 2-0 win over Hearts at Tynecastle.