IT was finally the sign of a man under pressure, writes Hugh MacDonald.

It was not the cupped ears at the end of an absorbing Old Firm match that provided evidence of the strain on Neil Lennon, the Celtic manager, but rather his reaction to being questioned about it. "Dont ask me about that. It is called humour. Don't distract about the team's performance. Don't write about it. You'll have the photographs tomorrow but it is just a bit of fun," he said. The Northern Irishman, of course, knew he could refuse to answer questions on the incident but would be unable to stop journalists writing about it and from photographs appearing in the newspapers.

His anger may just have been attributable to the sense that he had offered his critics an open goal but it was surely a product too of what has been an awful, draining week for him. He emerged yesterday from a 0-0 draw and from being the victim of a cowardly attempt on his life with his pugnacious attitude intact. He brushed off the missed penalty by Georgios Samaras to praise his players. "A lot of questions were asked of the players today and they have answered them. And we should have won the game. Their goalkeeper won man of the match so that says a lot about how we played, particularly in the second half."

Lennon, who revealed Joe Ledley will undergo a scan today to assess the extent of a leg injury, believed the key to the match was the way Celtic stood firm under physical pressure from Rangers.

"We have come here before and got beaten up," he said. "There was none of that today." He admitted his side now had a "slight advantage" going into the final matches but bristled before answering a question about 2005 when Celtic lost the league on the final day. "Why are you asking about that?" he said, before adding: "Every team wants to take your scalp and we have to be prepared for that as best we can."

Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, was disappointed that his side had not capitalised on any of the chances created when his side was in the ascendancy. Of the league title race, he said: "It puts Celtic in a position that we would want to be in. Anybody would want to be in that position. You still have to close it out, you still have to win your games. We have to continue and win our matches and see what happens. There have been points dropped in the last half dozen games over the past couple of seasons."

He said the Old Firm fixture had been the victim of exaggerated comment. Acknowledging extraneous events had reached an "unacceptable level", he said: "If you look at the games we have played this season there has maybe been a couple of incidents in two of them. If you watch football all over Britain similar incidents take place every weekend."

He added: "If you look at that game today, I can argue about penalty kicks and I can argue about something else but the game was played in a competitive spirit, in a decent spirit, as have most of the games we have had this season."

Of Old Firm games, he said: "They will go on but I won't be here. I am delighted about that."

Lennon will hope he faces more such fixtures but for the moment he craves some respite. "I need a couple of days to get my mind away from things," he said.