Joe Newell insists Hibs were right to stick to their guns at Celtic Park as midfielder dismisses rivals' defensive tactics

Joe Newell insists Hibs have no regrets taking the game to Celtic – even if the plan backfired at Parkhead.

The Easter Road men stuck to their passing game against the champions but eventually came a cropper as they went down 4-1 to Celtic. But Newell insisted the defeat won’t derail the optimism around the club under Nick Montgomery – and they are not prepared to camp in and hope for the best against the Old Firm. Some Premiership sides have managed to frustrate the Hoops by sitting deep, with Motherwell and St Johnstone picking up points at Parkhead.

But it’s not the Hibs way and Newell wants to continue the feel-good factor despite defeat. He said: “We’ve been brilliant lately. There’s no doom or gloom, it’s not a big disaster or anything. It is a night we will look back on and analyse where we went wrong and what we can learn from.

“But we are in a good place. We have got a massive game on Saturday and we have got huge fixtures coming up before the break that we are going to try and stamp our authority on.

“We are at a football club where every game is huge. We went to Parkhead fully expecting to be competitive and try and win the game.

"We didn’t go there to roll over, we never would do. Every fixture for us is huge if we want to be where we want to be at the end of the season.

“The games before Christmas and the derby after Christmas are real opportunities for us. We will learn from last night, look at where we went wrong and take the positives. There was some good stuff as well. Then we will go again.”

Newell insisted Hibs will stick to their approach – no matter what. He said: “Definitely. There are different ways to play football obviously. Teams will go to Parkhead and sit behind the ball. Motherwell did that