NEIL Lennon summed up Celtic’s 2-0 win against Rangers at Ibrox as the perfect performance and said the criticism levelled at his side going into the game only intensified their motivation to reassert their dominance on the title race.

Three days after securing their place in the Europa League group stages, Celtic arrived at Ibrox looking to continue their strong start to the new Premiership season.

Odsonne Edouard fired the Hoops ahead in the first half, and Celtic were unfortunate not to have a greater lead as the game drew to a close. Jonny Hayes sealed the win in added time with Celtic’s second to commemorate a dominant display from the champions.

“It was the perfect performance from start to finish, we were outstanding,” said Neil Lennon. “We took the game to Rangers and dominated the start. Everyone might have laughed at the kick-off but we wanted to play in their half, which we didn’t do in the corresponding fixture when we conceded a free-kick and were a goal down.

“There are many ways to skin a cat. This is a derby, it’s competitive and you have to fight fire with fire. You have to quieten the crowd and we did that to perfection today.

“From my own experience you have to press with aggression sometimes. For this fixture today, we felt it was the right way to go about business and with the players today we achieved that.

“I thought we deserved to win the game by more. The second goal was the icing on the cake. We defended strongly when we needed to. Elhamed had a brilliant performance coming in from the cold. The personality, character and strength of the team was evident today when everyone had written us off.

“We’re very proud, we take the three points and, psychologically, it’s a good win for us.”

Prior to today’s game Celtic had won three from three in the league and scored 15 goals in the process, yet the Treble Treble winners were widely viewed as underdogs.

Neil Lennon said the win against Steven Gerrard’s side served as a stark reminder that his team should not have been underestimated coming into the first Glasgow derby of the season.

“We were an afterthought coming into this fixture,” said the manager. “It was all about the opposition and what they were going to do to us. We didn’t listen to any of it. We stayed strong and played brilliantly. We came here to win, we came here to be strong.

“Everyone wrote us off. We were very motivated, hungry and had great belief about us. You can’t listen to the noise surrounding the game, you have to stick to what you believe in. I have a great backroom team and we set our stall out to be competitive.

“We’ve been dominant. We’re not prepared to give up our titles and neither are these players or the board.”

Neil Lennon holds up Celtic's derby win as perfect performance