Brendan Rodgers praised his Celtic team for showing fight in Dundee victory
Monday 20 March 2017 10:33, UK
Brendan Rodgers praised his Celtic team for showing fight in their victory over Dundee.
Celtic moved to within one win of a sixth successive Scottish Premiership title with a narrow 2-1 win over Dundee at Dens Park.
The Hoops took the lead with the last action of an unremarkable first half. Jozo Simunovic's shot deflected in off Dundee counterpart Kevin Gomis in first-half injury time, before in-form midfielder Stuart Armstrong made it 2-0 with a 51st-minute header.
However, Dundee did pull a goal back through substitute Faissal El Bakhtaoui, who thundered in a strike from 25-yards out just a single minute after coming off the bench.
With Celtic now able to wrap up the title on April 2 against Hearts at Tynecastle, Rodgers praised his team's ability to close the game out despite the setback of conceding a surprise Dundee goal.
"We showed a lot of development to our game today," he told Sky Sports after the match.
"We played some good football at times. We had good control of the game, we didn't create so much in the first half but still deserved to be in front.
"The second half we score a great goal in terms of build-up play. But I felt after that we had some chances to close the game out and then probably we lost our positioning in trying to keep the ball.
"We made a mistake which allows them to score the goal but it was a great strike. Then at 2-1 we had to show a different side because Dundee made it quite direct.
"It was a very good victory of us, some of the game was very good and other parts we had to show fight and mentality. But it was a great victory for us."
Moussa Dembele appeared to be holding his hamstring at the end of the match and limped off the pitch, but Rodgers insisted it was nothing serious.
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