Neil Lennon described Celtic’s 4-0 win against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park tonight as outstanding, but said he and his players won’t get carried away.

The manager hailed his players to a man, including debutant Jonjoe Kenny who signed on loan from Everton until the end of the season this week, and said the performance can stand as a marker moving forward.

“I’m delighted with the performance, it’s night and day from what we saw at the weekend and I got the reaction from the team and the players that I was looking for,” the Irishman said in an exclusive interview with Celtic TV. “It was an outstanding performance and that’s our marker, so we can’t drop off that between now and the end of the season.

"We’ve set a good level tonight and I want more of that. I thought Jonjoe was excellent, and considering he’s only trained with us for one day I think he had a superb game. He was calm, defended well, got forward at every opportunity and looked like he can play in the position.

“I thought they all played well tonight, I thought there was a real groove about us and I thought some of our football was fantastic on a bitterly cold night in difficult conditions. The attitude was spot on.

“It’s a step in the right direction, that’s all it is. We’re not going to get carried away. I whipped them at the weekend because I thought it was the right thing to do and they responded in the way I thought they would do. It’s been a good night’s work.”

‘I got the reaction that I was looking for, it was an outstanding performance. That's our marker so we can't drop off that between now and the end of the season. I want far more of that.’

The manager also reserved individual praise for his returning captain Scott Brown, and was also delighted to see Albian Ajeti get back on the scoresheet with a late goal.

He added: “I’m delighted for Albian, he played very well. He gets frustrated when he doesn’t score. He’s had injury problems and fitness problems but he’s bided his time and he looked really good tonight.

“The conditioning work that he’s done has paid dividends and it was good to get him 90 minutes. Hopefully we can get a run of games out of him now and he can show the Celtic fans what he’s really all about.”

Neil Lennon: Kilmarnock win outstanding but we won’t get carried away