Ange Postecoglou insists his side didn’t have to show a reaction to their Scottish Cup final loss as his Celtic earned the win that puts them on the brink of regaining the Scottish Premiership title.
Kyogo’s early header on his return to the starting XI and a late Jota strike sealed all three points against Ross County in the Highlands.
There was no real signs of the nerves that some predicted the Hoops might be feeling as they produced a dominant display to make it six league wins on the spin.
It restores Celtic’s six point advantage and with a vastly superior goal difference then victory in the Old Firm clash at Parkhead next Sunday will effectively clinch the league crown.
Celtic lost last time out to the Light Blues as they went down to an extra time Scottish Cup semi-final defeat at Hampden seven days ago.
But after bouncing back against the Staggies, Postecoglou told Sky Sports: “We never lost momentum. We lost a cup semi final in extra time. We’ve been really good for a very long time which is why we sit where we sit.
“From our perspective, it wasn’t about a reaction from last week. We were disappointed but it didn’t affect anything in the league and what was important for us was to continue our good form.
“It was a strong performance. It’s a difficult place to come and play and they’re a hard team to break down and we probably should have put them away in the first half to be fair, we had enough opportunities.
“But to put in a strong performance - which is all we needed today - I thought the boys did well.
“We were solid defensively because they’ve got threats and will throw the ball in the box every chance they get whether it’s a throw-in, free kick, and they’ve got some big boys in there and we had to deal with that and we handled it really well.
“It’s not an easy place to come if you look at their record at home and to do it the way we did today was pleasing.”
Postecoglou was delighted with his two scorers and said: “Kyogo has missed a big chunk of the season and he's a helluva player. We’ve done well without him but it’s great to have him back.
“He’s still not 100 per cent sharp and would probably have had two or three today on his best form but great that he got a goal as his reward.
“ Jota was good today. He’s another player who had a great start to the season and got an injury - I’ve had a few of those players whose momentum was interrupted.
“It takes a while to get back, it’s only natural, but team-wise he was excellent, worked really and was a good link for us.”
