How Celtic stick is firing players up for Rangers, and the 'mental' Santa moment

Liam Scales says that Celtic are desperate to seal a league and Scottish Cup double to finally silence their doubters, after manager Brendan Rodgers used criticism aimed at his side to fire up his players.

Celtic finished their Premiership campaign with a 3-2 win over St Mirren before being presented with the league trophy on Saturday, meaning they finished the season eight points clear of city rivals Rangers.

At times this season though the title race looked far from a foregone conclusion, and both Rodgers and his team came in for stick from both pundits and supporters at various points in the campaign.

READ MORE: The smoke clears and Celtic emerge as champions...again

The Celtic manager showed his men some of that criticism this week after they finally got over the line with the emphatic win against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park, and Scales has revealed that it has made the squad determined to seal a double with victory over Rangers at Hampden on Saturday.

“That would be amazing,” Scales said.

“The season didn’t start very well, getting knocked out of the League Cup early on. A lot of the narrative was about us crumbing a bit. And it would be nice to put that to bed by sealing a double.

“He [showed us some of the criticism] before the game. Looking back, I didn’t realise that at the time as I sort of keep away from that sort of stuff. But we were criticised from all angles.

“It was going on in the background for me, but it will be good to get it over the line this weekend and prove people wrong I suppose which is always a nice thing to do.

“We didn’t need anyone to tell us that there were times when we weren’t performing as well as we should have been. We could feel that ourselves. We don’t need to hear it from pundits. We know when we’re good or when we’re bad.

“There were spells when we struggled a little bit. It was the first season back for the manager and a new sort of style and it just took a little bit of time to get used to it.

“Over the last few weeks we’ve hit a good run and hopefully we can continue that into the final.”

One of the more surreal moments at Celtic Park on Saturday came when a man dressed as Santa carried the Premiership trophy out onto the pitch, as the Celtic fans made amends for booing him during a defeat to Hearts back in December.

READ MORE: 'Justice for Santa': Why Father Christmas handed Celtic the SPFL Trophy

And Scales laughed as he was filled in on the back story, having initially been puzzled to see him emerge from the tunnel.

“I didn’t know what that was about – that was a bit mental!” he said.

“I didn’t know the story about what had happened before so it makes sense now.

“I’m glad Santa got a good reception this time around. He deserved that.

“Scottish football is a bit mad at times but it’s brilliant at the same time and I love being a part of it.”