PANTOMIME villain Scott Sinclair admitted he took pleasure last night in silencing the Motherwell boo boys by converting the controversial late penalty which extended Celtic’s invincible domestic record to 66 matches.

Fir Park was in a ferment as the English frontman entered the fray from the substitutes’ bench late on during Wednesday night’s Premiership match in Lanarkshire, a residue of bad feeling which carried over from a suspicion in home areas that the player had gone to ground too easily to win a penalty and see Cedric Kipre sent off during Sunday’s BetFred Cup final at Hampden.

But the former Chelsea, Swansea City and Aston Villa player made light of the pressure by stroking his spot kick into the top corner of Trevor Carson’s net and said his critics would have to try harder if they want to put him off his stride.

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As his manager Brendan Rodgers mentioned on Wednesday night, Sinclair had previously converted a penalty in a play-off final at Wembley in front of 90,000 fans with tens of millions of pounds on the line.

“It’s always nice to score after the abuse and the stick,” said Sinclair. “But all that stuff doesn’t faze me one bit. When I step up to take a penalty I am always calm and composed.

“There was no competition to hit the penalty,” he added. “Obviously, Moussa [Dembele] is the regular penalty taker but he was not playing and I am No 2. So when he is not on the pitch it’s up to me.

"It’s all about composure when you take penalties. You have to be confident. It was a pressure penalty but I just put everything that was happening to one side and focused on putting it in the back of the net.”

If anything, Wednesday night’s award for a bump by Motherwell midfielder Andy Rose on Callum McGregor after a fine Carson double save was even more contentious than the one involving Kipre and Sinclair at the national stadium on Sunday. Rose said he felt the Scotland midfield had initiated the contact and “flopped to the ground”, although the Motherwell player did at least have a nibble at the ball with his left foot which encouraged McGregor to go down in the first place. The Englishman even managed a smile when it was put to him that McGregor may now replace him for villain status amongst the Motherwell support ahead of tomorrow’s third meeting of this epic week-long series at Celtic Park.

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“I’ve taken criticism in the last week?” he said. “People are there to criticise and it’s up to them what they say. But I’ve moved on and I’m looking forward. Is it tough to be branded a diver? That’s up to the critics. It doesn’t faze me. I concentrate on my game. It doesn't make a difference to me. Whatever comes my way I will take it in my stride. There’s always going to be critics in football."

Controversial or not, Sinclair insisted he felt Wednesday night’s award – by the letter of the law – was a penalty and the match was further illustration of the character which Celtic have displayed to compile such a historic unbeaten domestic run. ‘I’ve not seen it back but a lot of the boys were saying it is a penalty,” said Sinclair. “Deep in the team we have belief. When you go 1-0 down late in the game, like we did against Motherwell, it takes character to come back from that. But I thought we created a lot of chances and we showed our character to bounce back.

“Every week is tough, not just tonight against Motherwell. Every single week, every team wants to be the first team to stop our run. It’s up to us not to be complacent and we never are. We need to try and make sure we get the wins."