Brendan Rodgers was delighted with Luke McCowan’s triumph at Motherwell

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers was delighted to see his side’s strength pay off when Luke McCowan scored in the absence of the injured Callum McGregor in a 3-0 win over Motherwell.

Goals from substitute captain Alistair Johnston and substitute Adam Idah helped Rodgers to by far the safest victory at Fir Park, a stadium where he had dropped points three times and secured an injury-time win three times in six visits.

Motherwell midfielder Lennon Miller hit both post and crossbar before McCowan opened the scoring with a shot from 18 yards after creating space for himself.

“I’m very happy for him,” Rodgers said. “When a Celtic fan comes, maybe first of all there is this enthusiasm, but then it wanes.

“But he performs with great energy, great passion for the game and has quality. Callum obviously wasn’t going to play so the idea was to bring him in because he’s a goal threat and I thought he would do really well.

“You see every game he plays he looks like he can score or score goals.”

Rodgers made four changes after Wednesday’s draw with Atalanta.

“You could have rested Arne (Engels), who came as a young player and played so many games that the distance he covered in midweek was huge,” he said. “Of course, I am very grateful to the club for signing players who allow us to do this.”

Cameron Carter-Vickers is back from injury on the bench, while McGregor is a doubt for Dundee in midweek due to a hip strain, but is expected to be fit for Saturday’s Premier Sports Cup semi-final against Aberdeen.

“It shouldn’t be too serious,” Rodgers said. “It was really mature because maybe he hadn’t mentioned it before. After the training session, he had a slight premonition.

“Rather than take any risk, we didn’t want to put it on and maybe stretch it out and then be out for a few weeks. So hopefully everything will be OK for the next few days, and if not on Wednesday, hopefully everything will be OK next weekend.”

Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell felt the match depended on a number of missed chances for his team and McCowan’s over-the-ball possession.

“I thought we played great in the first quarter, created some good chances, hit the post a few times and looked pretty comfortable,” he said.

– We have to take advantage of these opportunities when they arise. I think we did the right thing, we sculpted them.

“Celtic scored a goal which I thought was a bit accidental. I know it’s all about your luck in this game, but McCowan took a slight ricochet but then finished it off well.

“Until Celtic scored the second goal, we felt we were in good shape. I felt we were where we needed to be and the second goal was a killer.

Kettlewell felt Liam Gordon’s stoppage-time red card for a tackle following a VAR tackle was “harsh”. The defender will miss Motherwell’s next two league matches, but not the semi-final against Rangers, as all red card suspensions are now competition-specific.

Kettlewell said: “The first thing you see on the screen are still images and of course they look bad.

“After the match, I spoke calmly to the referee to ask what he saw in the challenge. He was talking about the Celtic player’s ankle being sprained, but my counter-argument is that you’re talking about Liam Gordon in full extension at that moment, without any force trying to put his finger on the ball.

“I admit he doesn’t hit the ball as hard as I thought at the time, but I don’t think he came onto the field with any reckless intention or trying to hurt a Celtic player.”