Celtic's Ryan Christie has insisted that the Parkhead side need to regroup swiftly as they look to Wednesday night's Betfred League Cup tie in Perth.

The attacking midfielder was given a rare start against Kilmarnock yesterday afternoon in what was a frustrating day for the club.

However, he has echoed the words of Rodgers by insisting that Celtic need to show their character as they look to get back on to winning form.

"It is just about belief and togetherness," he said. "We know we have got that when we look at each other. We are starting to come under a bit of scrutiny but that is when you start looking to either side of you, at your team-mates.

"We have got the belief to do that. We are not panicking. We still highly believe that we can push on and get back to the top of our game. It is as important we do that as soon as we can.

"Now we go into the St Johnstone game and we are desperate to put ourselves into a semi-final. Everybody has to be at the top of the game. We have to forget about today, look at it and right the wrongs. Most importantly focus on that and make sure we come out of that having progressed into the semi final."

Christie, though, acknowledged just how difficult a result it was to take at Rugby Park.

The defeat means that Celtic are now languishing in sixth spot and have endured their worst start to a campaign for twenty years.

"It is always gutting to lose a match in the last minute, particularly from something as simple as a set piece," he said. "At Celtic we like to pride ourselves on the simplistics of the game and it is very frustrating to concede in the last minute in this manner.

"You really know what you are going to come up against with in Kilmarnock, they have done so well in the last couple of seasons. Their manager has done really well to get them well structured throughout their team, we dominated the ball for pretty much the whole match and for them to have only two shots on target and win 2-1 you can say that is unfortunate but we can only look at ourselves."