Thursday 30 November 2017 17:50, UK
Brendan Rodgers has hit back at diving accusations aimed at Celtic as his side prepare to face Motherwell for a third time in a week.
Callum McGregor won a late penalty which was converted by Scott Sinclair in Wednesday night's Scottish Premiership game at Fir Park as Celtic rescued a 1-1 draw and extend their unbeaten run to 66 matches.
The result came just three days after Sinclair won Celtic a penalty in their 2-0 win over Motherwell in the Scottish League Cup final, with Cedric Kipre sent off for impeding the former Aston Villa winger.
But speaking ahead of the two sides third meeting in a week on Saturday, Rodgers defended his side against accusations of diving: "I think we won the Fair Play award last year.
"We have values here as a club as well as a team and that is something that we always go by. We have had two penalty decisions that have been the first two penalties of this season, of course, against the same opponent.
"You will always look at it from your perspective and I thought they were penalties. But this is a group of players who are super honest and the referees have both been in good positions and gave both.
"We don't need validation from anyone. We like to win on the scoreboard but we also like to do it by being the most sporting team and I think we showed that last year and also up until now."
Meanwhile, Patrick Roberts will miss this weekend's game at Celtic Park and the Champions League clash at home to Anderlecht with a hamstring injury.
Moussa Dembele and Nir Bitton are back training following knocks and will be assessed on Friday.
