Laftear THE BIG GAMES’

Celtic 0 St Johnstone 0

Hamilton 3 Rangers 5

BRENDAN RODGERS last night accused struggling St Johnstone stars of only turning up for the big games.

The frustrated Celtic boss admitted the visitors were good value for their point at Parkhead yesterday.

But Rodgers pointed the finger at the Perth men for producing the goods on the big stage while failing to raise their game against the rest of the division.

Saints have now drawn twice at Celtic Park and won against Hibs at Easter Road while their last Premiership win was the 3-1 victory against Rangers at Ibrox.

Rodgers had no complaints about picking up just a point three days after the big Europa League night against Zenit.

But he insisted Saints boss Tommy Wright has a right to be raging at his inconsistent squad.

Rodgers said: “There’s a question there for Tommy’s players. He’s a fantastic manager and I am sure he walks away happy with a point.

“But he’s probably really frustrated. How can you win a game at Ibrox 3-1 on December 16 and then not win again right through apart from the Albion game?

“The next big result is away at Celtic. So the question is with the St Johnstone players.

“They were committed, fighting, running. If they do that in every single match then they would win a lot more games.

“But that’s the expectancy when you are a Celtic player everyone will come and fight to make it difficult for you. St Johnstone did that. They had good organisation, got blocks and they ran their hearts out.”

Rodgers made seven changes ahead of the Zenit return in Russia on Thursday.

Skipper Scott Brown was banned while Mikael Lustig and Olivier Ntcham were out with injury and illness respectively.

When asked if he regretted the wholesale changes, Rodgers said: “No – you have to be careful with so many big games.”

THE STANDINGS

RANGERS boss Graeme Murty has demanded his stars do not allow second place in the Premiership to be the limit of their ambitions.

The Ibrox men made it 11 goals in their last two games as Josh Windass (above) scored another hat-trick while Alfredo Morelos and Jamie Murphy were also on the scoresheet.

But Murty insisted: “I told the players before the game they’d been handed a chance to go second and they couldn’t turn it down.

“But we don’t want second at this stage of the season to be the highlight of our careers – we want it to be a stepping stone to where we want to go.”