Hoops look to past heroes

Celtic midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura has revealed how manager Gordon Strachan wants his players to show the spirit of two former Hoops heroes as they seek their second Bank of Scotland Premier League title in a row.

The Parkhead side are stumbling in pursuit of the title towards the championship and Saturday’s 1-0 win over Motherwell, courtesy of a Derek Riordan goal just after the interval, was their first win since they were eliminated from the last 16 of the Champions League by AC Milan on March 7.

Strachan tried to rally his troops by pointing to Stiliyan Petrov and John Hartson, who were both instrumental in helping the Celtic boss to his first title win last season before they left Parkhead to join Aston Villa and West Brom respectively.

And the champions-elect looked like they could have used the energetic Bulgarian midfielder and the burly Welsh striker as they struggled to dispose of a spirited but limited Fir Park side.

The Japan international said: “The manager was furious at half-time and after the game.

“He told the players that Petrov and Hartson had played with character and we had to live up to that.

“It’s a difficult period. We were knocked out of the Champions League and after that we haven’t been able to get the points we needed.

“Everybody is a bit tired but we can’t be satisfied with the performance, the only good thing was getting the three points.”

Celtic can wrap the title up against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park in their next SPL game in a fortnight’s time.

But Nakamura refused to take anything for granted, saying: “I don’t think about the championship. I just think about one game at a time.”

Celtic defender Lee Naylor played down the effects of an impatient Parkhead crowd, who are growing increasingly frustrated as the weeks go on.

He said: “If you start letting things like that affect you then you shouldn’t really be here.

“We knew it was going to be hard, there are no easy games. But we played our game, we passed the ball and we showed a lot of confidence.

“We kept probing and chances were coming, we just needed to put one away. As it was getting late on you obviously feel ’is this going to happen again?’ but everyone kept positive, kept going and we got what we wanted in the end.”

As he looked forward to the five post-split fixtures, Motherwell defender Martyn Corrigan insists the Steelmen will fight to be the ’best of the rest’.

He said: “That’s two years running that we haven’t finished in the top six which is disappointing.

“But there is personal pride involved so we want to finish as high up the table as we can.”