Sadiku felt her side did enough to claim victory

CELTIC manager Elena Sadiku yesterday claimed that her team had deserved to triumph in their Scottish Women’s Premier League 1 encounter with Rangers at Broadwood and said: “They had nothing.”

The Parkhead club drew 0-0 with their Ibrox rivals to put themselves in a strong position entering the final three games of the league season against Partick Thistle, Hearts and Hibernian.

They are now level on points with their opponents – but have a vastly superior goal difference and will be crowned Scottish champions for the first time in their existence if they win all of their remaining fixtures.

Jo Potter’s treble-chasing side hit the woodwork twice – Eilidh Austin and Mia McAulay struck the crossbar with long-range efforts in each half – during the Old Firm encounter but Sadiku felt the visitors had been the better team.

“I am happy with the performance,” said the Swede. “Rangers hit the crossbar twice from distance, but otherwise they had nothing. We had chances which we should had scored from.

“We all know what Natasha Flint can do. She is an incredible goalscorer. It was not her day today, but I know she will score in the rest of the games. Even if we should be happy with the point because we are still top of the league, I think we should have won.”

She added: “I don’t think that Rangers dominated the first-half. Yes, they hit the crossbar, but they didn’t create anything really. We had a great chance with Tash that should have been a goal. So I don’t think that Rangers dominated the first-half, absolutely not.

“I was really calm at half-time. We made some errors, but we also created some chances by playing how we usually play. We showed some clips and corrected some things in the second-half. We believed we could do it and we proved that in the second-half.”

Sadiku is confident that Celtic, who were cheered on by a large travelling support in a game which was shown live on Sky Sports, will continue to show the same application as they did against Rangers in their remaining SWPL 1 games.

“I felt we were the better team against Rangers and should have won,” she said. “The girls showed up. We knew this was going to be a huge game for us and we dealt with the pressure great, especially in the second half. I thought there was only one team on the pitch and that was us.

“It is all about us. We have to focus on us. We always aim to win when we go into the games. The hunger we showed today is so important.”