Match-winner Anthony Stokes knows he still has to fight for place in team

• Anthony Stokes: Came off bench

The Republic of Ireland striker was relegated to the bench by Lennon for the trip to Rugby Park but was called into action after just 22 minutes when Paddy McCourt suffered a shoulder injury. Stokes responded by grabbing the winner for Celtic, who came from behind to secure a 2-1 victory over Kilmarnock which sees them keep pace with Rangers at the top of the SPL. "It's a brilliant feeling to score for Celtic and I'm delighted to get off the mark for the club so early," said Stokes, who joined his boyhood heroes from Hibs in a 1.2 million move last month.

"I still need to produce every day in training to impress the manager but scoring today won't do me any harm.

''When I made my debut against Hearts at Celtic Park last week, it took me a while to get into the game. So it wasn't a big issue to be on the bench today."

Celtic manager Lennon was unhappy with his team's first- half performance, which saw them fall behind to Connor Sammon's early goal before equalising through Daryl Murphy's penalty just before the break.

'We made it difficult for ourselves," said Lennon. "We were wasteful in possession early on, ill-disciplined in our defensive shape at times. It was probably a lack of concentration and the goal we conceded was preventable.

"We got rolled in midfield, we had players getting on the wrong side. Glenn Loovens seems to have turned his back and Sammon's got across him then tucked it in.

''Sooner or later we were going to concede a goal in the SPL this season. It's the reaction to it that you're looking for and we got that today.

"I had words with the players at half-time. We were forcing the issue at times and were a wee bit sloppy, not moving the ball quickly enough or wide enough. We were making it easy for Kilmarnock, we didn't work the goalkeeper enough. But we had plenty of set plays.

''In the second half we just wanted to get a foothold in the game early and take the game to them. The goal seemed to settle us down.

"I'm delighted that we showed a lot of character. Certainly as the first half wore on, we got stronger and stronger, then totally dominated in the second half."

Celtic will assess McCourt's latest injury today, while their captain Scott Brown is likely to miss Wednesday night's Co-operative Insurance Cup tie against Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Celtic Park after suffering a recurrence of his left ankle injury yesterday.

Kilmarnock manager Mixu Paatelainen took encouragement in defeat yesterday and is optimistic his team can build on the positive aspects of their performance.

"We started fantastically well," said Paatelainen. "It's not often you see any team start the way we did against Celtic or Rangers.But as the game went on, Celtic forced us deeper and we didn't clear our lines as well as we could have done. It is a learning curve but the way we played in patches was very promising."