caldwell: we have the character to bounce back

David Friel
GARY CALDWELL is confident SPL champions Celtic will return stronger than ever despite losing the first Glasgow derby of the season.

Rangers ran out 4-2 winners in a stormy encounter on Sunday, but Hoops defender Caldwell is refusing to push the panic button at this early stage of the campaign.

Last season, Celtic lost the first two derbies but took maximum points from the final two clashes and went on to win the title. Caldwell believes the resilience of this Celtic squad should never be questioned.

“It’s a setback because we’re three points behind now and we’re chasing Rangers again,” he said. “But we showed last year we are strong enough to do it, that we can do it and we will do it again this year.

“We’ve come back from this before. We are the champions and they have got to come and take it from us. In this game they were better than us and we will hold our hands up. But as we proved last year it’s a long season.”

Rangers took the lead at Celtic Park through Daniel Cousin but Georgios Samaras equalised to leave the scores level at half-time.

Shaun Maloney almost fired Celtic ahead with a curling effort before Rangers raced into a 4-1 lead, courtesy of Kenny Miller’s double and a Pedro Mendes strike.

Before Miller’s second, Cousin and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink both received their marching orders. Shunsuke Nakamura made it 4-2 late on with a free-kick.

Caldwell said: “When you play against your biggest rivals at home you always want to win and to lose by the margin we did was very disappointing. They scored their goals at the right times and took their chances when we didn't.

“The third goal killed us a bit and the red cards saw the game go a bit scrappy after that. We were chasing it and it just slipped away from us. We will look at it, learn from it and try to get better.”