Celtic’s interim manager John Kennedy has highlighted his players’ mentality and work-rate as key factors ahead of Sunday’s Scottish Cup fourth round tie at Ibrox.

The 37-year-old identified last Saturday’s 6-0 rout of Livingston at Paradise as a performance he’d love to replicate, but admitted the result is what matters most this weekend.

“I think we’re close performance-wise. We’ve been good, we’ve been much more consistent,” said Kennedy. “We’ve dominated games, we’ve had lots of the play, we’ve created a lot of chances, and we’ve not given too much away in our own box and goal.

“There are lots of positives there, but, again, it’ll be a tough game. It’s a cup match, which means you can’t make any mistakes, you have to go into the game and hit top form.

'Our recent form is promising for us, it’ll give us confidence off the back of the last game and the little run we’ve had. We’ve been scoring goals and putting in good performances, the players are finding their form as well, so it leads to a very exciting game.'

John Kennedy acknowledged the magnitude of Sunday’s game but said he’s keen to focus his players on the task at hand, and not the emotion of the fixture.

He added: “I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself or the team – it’s about performances, it’s about being clear. Sometimes the emotion of these games overrides the clarity of your judgement.

“We have to be clear in terms of what the game means and what we have to do to perform in that game and hopefully that brings a positive result.

“A massive part of Sunday will be about the result. Even if the performance isn’t perfect, we want to show the mentality and willingness to go and work and run, and even if we need to grind it out, we’ll try and grind it out.

“We know we’ve underperformed this season, Rangers have been very good, but we want to make sure that over the time the gap maybe isn’t as big as people think.”

John Kennedy: Mentality and work-rate will be key on Sunday