Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers happy with his side's hunger after win over Dundee

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers (SNS Group)

CELTIC boss Brendan Rodgers claims hunger was the key to their 2-0 win over Dundee at Dens Park on Boxing Day.

Winger James Forrest opened the scoring from close range in the eighth minute with his 12th goal of the season and former Dark Blues’ striker Leigh Griffiths knocked in a second before the break to take the champions 11 points clear of Aberdeen at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership.

Ahead of the visit of Old Firm rivals Rangers on Saturday – the last of nine fixtures in December and the last before the winter break – the Hoops manager praised his players’ motivation.

“I thought we started the game well and showed good control”, said Rodgers, who awaits the results of an X-ray on Jonny Hayes’ shin after he was carried off the field in a stretcher following a tackle with home defender Josh Meekings, who also had to be replaced.

“Dundee have shown they are a tough team to play against so it was always going to be a difficult game for us.

“But I thought we controlled large parts of the game and scored two very good goals.

“The first goal was a great demonstration of our patience where we were still looking to get into areas where we could hurt them. We did that in the end with some great passing and moving and a great goal from James.

“The second goal was about our hunger. It’s not enough to want to win the game.

“You have to be hungry to win it and that means getting close to people and pressing the way we press because that’s the identity we’ve created.

“Even when we’re in a run of games that are hard physically, we have that motivation and the players showed that.”

Dundee manager Neil McCann thought his side lacked “belief”.

He said: “We needed to up the aggression levels in the second half but we didn’t really do that.

“We maybe lacked a wee bit of belief that we could get into the game.

“I won’t be too hard on them because we have had three tough games lately.

“We have one more game then we will get into the winter break.”