Celtic ready to 'come alive' in title fight with Rangers but will have to do it without key player

Strong second-half showing gives champions important win over St Mirren

Brendan Rodgers believes Celtic are ready to “come alive” in the closing stages of the season after extending their lead at the top of the table with a 3-0 victory over St Mirren.

The champions were sluggish in the first half but showed greater vibrancy after the turn-around when goals from Reo Hatate, Kyogo Furuhashi and Adam Idah helped them ease to a relatively comfortable win. Celtic’s lead over Rangers now stands at four points – the Ibrox side have two games in hand – allowing them to now turn their attention to their Scottish Cup semi-final against Aberdeen next weekend in a positive frame of mind.

Rodgers doesn’t expect Daizen Maeda to feature again this season due to a hamstring injury but believes the rest of his squad is in good shape as they head into the business end of the campaign. He said: “We are where we want to be. It’s in our hands. I really look forward to this period because it’s where Celtic comes alive. There are five games to go with trophies at stake. There’s a Scottish Cup at stake, so bring it on. I’d rather be the team with points in the bag at the top.

Celtic's Reo Hatate celebrates with Nicolas Kuhn and Matt O'Riley.

“We’re in a really good position and when you know that everything is with you - and you can decide what your destiny is - that’s what you want. That’s why the result at Ibrox was huge for us, as well as the performance. We had to be tough last weekend, bite down on the gum shield, and see it through in a difficult environment. That bodes well for us. We know we can play our football now, with speed, and we can score goals. We’ve also shown a steeliness which will be important in the run-in.”

Callum McGregor started again from the bench against St Mirren but Rodgers believes having his captain plus Hatate and Cameron Carter-Vickers back from their respective injury lay-offs could prove significant. “You can see that we’ve missed players who are a huge influence for us and now they’re all back,” added Rodgers. “Carter-Vickers today was absolutely brilliant and on a different level. We’ve now got a bench that can really affect the game for us. Look at Adam coming on today. We’ve got players who can come in and make a difference, which is huge.

“I’m not sure we’ll see Daizen again this season, I don’t expect him to feature too much. It’s such a small window now. [Liam] Scales is different. He has soreness in his abductor but hopefully he’ll be okay. Otherwise, we’re strong.”

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson hoped his side’s impressive first-half performance would stand them in good stead for their post-split fixtures. He said: “We were excellent for 45 minutes and then we can get undone by two excellent goals. Kyogo’s movement for the second goal was fantastic and the delivery as well. And the first goal was a super finish. That’s the difference in levels.

“There were a lot of good performances, it’s hard for me to single out anybody in particular. We’re a good football side, we passed the ball and the pitch was excellent. We now have these last five games to go and chase European football which would be an incredible achievement for this group of boys.”