Republic of Ireland international Aiden McGeady claimed Celtic have made their critics eat their words after a last-gasp victory over bitter rivals Rangers kept their title hopes alive.

The Parkhead winger is well aware the defending champions were criticised for a lack of fight and desire when they slumped to defeat at Ibrox last month and Rangers were tipped to run away with the honours.

However, last night's 2-1 win at Celtic Park changed everything, with Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink's injury-time winner providing the Hoops with a much-needed boost heading into the final strait of the campaign.

The title race should have been all but over with seconds to go after Nacho Novo cancelled out Shunsuke Nakamura's opener and Scott McDonald had a penalty saved but a single point is now all that stands between the Glasgow giants, albeit Rangers have two matches in hand.

"There were accusations levelled at us for having a lack of character or any leaders in the team but I don't think you can say that after tonight," beamed McGeady.

"It was a great performance. We were looking at a 1-1 draw and the league would have been out of our hands. But to eventually win 2-1 and to keep trying to get that goal shows the character we have."

McDonald stepped up for the spot-kick with 20 minutes to go after Carlos Cuellar saw red for deliberate handball and McGeady praised the spirit of both Celtic and the Australian striker for refusing to give up.

He said: "We didn't give up and we still had chances after that and we kept on plugging away. Credit to wee Scotty, he didn't let his head go down and he put the ball across to Jan who stuck it in. That's what it's all about.

"Jan is normally the penalty-taker so I thought he was going to take it but he passed it over to wee Scotty for some reason — maybe he was more confident. Scotty missed it but it's no big deal, we still won."

Manager Gordon Strachan was a man under pressure ahead of kick-off, having lost the previous four encounters with Walter Smith's men.

But McGeady insisted there was no need for a grand team-talk from the Hoops boss prior to the game.

"He didn't need to say anything — we knew how big a game it was ourselves," he said. "If we had lost, everyone would have been saying the league was finished. But it's in our favour now and we have put the pressure on Rangers.

"It was fantastic. I think the better team won in the end to be honest with you. I think we played better than Rangers over the 90 minutes and deserved the result.

"It was enjoyable to play in that sort of atmosphere and the fact we managed to get the win made it all the better."

The derby was marred at the end by a melee involving both sets of players, which is likely to result in David Weir and Gary Caldwell picking up suspensions after being hauled into referee Kenny Clark's room afterwards.

McGeady was also involved in an altercation with Novo but was keen to play down the bust-up.

"It was just one of those things that happen in football, a bit of handbags," he said. "You get things like that in football all the time, it's not just tonight. It sort of escalated into something that it didn't need to and a lot of focus has been put on that now. But it was nothing, really."