Graeme Souness: Celtic suffered 'almighty blow' in title race

Celtic suffered an "almighty blow" in the title race despite Rangers losing against Motherwell, according to former Ibrox boss Graeme Souness.

Philippe Clement had only suffered defeat to Celtic since taking over at Ibrox in October but Motherwell twice took the lead in Govan as they claimed a shock 2-1 victory on Saturday to deny their opponents a 12th-consecutive win.

However, Celtic missed the chance to go back to the top of the cinch Premiership on Sunday when they lost 2-0 against Hearts at Tynecastle after having Yang Hyun-jun sent off early on.

When asked about Clement, Souness said: "He's doing a fabulous job. He is getting a tune out of a group of players who were looking a pretty sorry bunch before he arrived, who weren't believing, who weren't playing with any confidence, who didn't play with an intensity that's necessary to to win football matches.

"And now they are. OK, they lost at the weekend, but that can happen. It happened to me many times in my managerial career and playing career, where you have had the best chances but you lose the game. That can happen.

"But this weekend was still a great weekend for Rangers. Simply because Celtic were going into that game on Sunday thinking 'it's our opportunity, let's be bang at it'.

"They were bang at it but they still came unstuck. OK, they got a player sent off, but that's an almighty blow to Celtic this weekend that they couldn't make ground up, having seen Rangers slip up the day before."