Celtic winger Jota: 'We've done that all season' as Rangers draw takes step towards cinch Premiership title

Celtic goal hero Jota says there should be no surprise over how he ghosted in at the back-post to fire his side into the lead – it’s something they consciously work on at the Lennoxtown training ground and have tried to do already this season, with some success.

The Portuguese’ strike in the 21st minute had all the hall-marks of Liel Abada's goal in the corresponding fixture against Rangers earlier this season with a clipped ball from the left rifled in at close-range by the player making the right-wing run.

Unlike that evening though Rangers rallied and equalised in the second half through Fashion Sakala, but Jota wasn’t surprised by the manner of the goal, nor their rivals’ response in the second half.

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"It’s something we work on alot – which is the cross and the back-post goal. It is something we have been doing for the whole season and it is bearing fruit.

"In games like this we can never expect to have 99 percent possession and scoring goals and assisting and this kind of thing. Sometimes they will have the ball, sometimes we will and we just need to know how to play that way.

"It is always a tough game against Rangers. I think we did our best to go for the win, unfortunately we didn’t do it but we go again next week.”

Victory would have handed Celtic the title in all but mathematical certainty but a draw maintains the six-point gap at the top with nine still to play for in the coming weeks. While Rangers head into a huge Europa league match with RB Leipzig on Thursday, Jota insists his team-mates will be recuperating and ready to take another shot at winning the title next week against Hearts – which they can confirm by bettering the league result of their Old Firm rivals against Dundee United.

"The next game is always the most important for us and that’s our thinking right now,” he told Sky Sports after the draw. “I think I have been saying that a lot recently, but this is how it works at this time of the season – we will rest and see what we good and what we did bad and, for be sure, we will be at our strongest position for Hearts.”

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