NEIL LENNON TOOK aim at sceptics who he believes had written off Celtic prior to Sunday’s clinical 2-0 victory over Rangers at Ibrox.

The Scottish champions produced a faultless performance in the Old Firm derby to move three points clear of their Glasgow rivals in first place.

Odsonne Edouard punished Connor Goldson’s cheap turnover to open the scoring in the first half before Jonny Hayes sealed the victory in stoppage time.

Lennon was unhappy with criticism levelled at his side following last month’s Champions League loss to Cluj and felt hype surrounding Rangers was unwarranted.

“We were an afterthought coming into this fixture,” the Hoops boss said.

It was all about the opposition and what they were going to do to us.

“We didn’t listen to any of it. We stayed strong and played brilliantly.

“We came here to win, we came here to be strong.

“Everyone wrote us off. We were very motivated, hungry and had great belief about us.

“You can’t listen to the noise surrounding the game, you have to stick to what you believe in.

“I have a great backroom team and we set our stall out to be competitive.

“We’ve been dominant. We’re not prepared to give up our titles and neither are these players or the board.”

Rangers boss Steven Gerrard felt let down by the performances of all but Jon Flanagan and took particular issue with Jordan Jones, who was shown a straight red card following a wild challenge on Moritz Bauer in added time.

I think Jordan was maybe trying to appease the fans — that’s not how you appease fans,” Gerrard told Sky Sports.

“You do it by creating and scoring goals if you’re a wide man, not by kicking people when the ball is 10 yards away.

“He deserves his red card, he deserves his ban and he’s got everything to do now to get back in my team.”

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