Lennon lays down gauntlet to Rangers

CELTIC midfielder Neil Lennon has warned Rangers there will be no let-up in the race for silverware this season.

The Glasgow giants will go head to head in the CIS Insurance Cup final on Sunday at Hampden Park, just eight days after the Hoops' priceless 1-0 win in the league at Parkhead.

Celtic could be forgiven for putting the title and UEFA Cup glory against Liverpool before Sunday's showdown.

But the former Northern Ireland international maintains every trophy counts: "The CIS Cup final is a game we want to win. We don't want to lose any game. That's the mentality of the team and the manager. He wants to win every competition, and this cup is no different, even with Liverpool games either side of it.

"We've come a long way in the UEFA Cup after the disappointment of the Champions League, and we are making a real fight of it now.

"You could see the boys were very focused against Rangers because we knew what was at stake.

"We couldn't afford to lose but, even if we had, going nine points behind with a game in hand and still having to go to Ibrox, anything could have happened. Having said that, it would have been a long way back for us."

Lennon believes Celtic have overturned Rangers' dominance in the fixture at exactly the right time.

Celtic supporters had been forced to wait for 15 months since the last win over their deadliest rivals.

"We wanted to put the talk about not having beaten Rangers for 15 months to bed. When I first came we rode our luck a bit. Rangers have had their bit of luck in the last few games, and now we have come out on top again and at the right time."

Meanwhile Gerard Houllier believes Senegal hitman El Hadji Diouf is on the verge of a real breakthrough in his troubled first season in the Premiership. On the eve of Liverpool's UEFA Cup quarter-final against Celtic, Houllier reckons everyone has been too hard on Diouf and have expected too much too soon.

Diouf played arguably his best games for Liverpool in the Worthington Cup final and the weekend's league win over Bolton, where he made one goal and scored his sixth of the season since his £10 million move from Lens last summer on a five-year contract.

Diouf arrived at Anfield on the back of an impressive World Cup for Senegal, but until recently had failed to make any sort of consistent impact.

Now Houllier, who seems certain to retain the 22-year-old on the right against Celtic on Thursday.

Houllier will still be without Emile Heskey and Stephane Henchoz at Parkhead, and says that Steven Gerrard's stomach bug that forced him off against Bolton will have cleared up before Thursday.