NEIL LENNON HAILED his Celtic team after they set up a Scottish Cup semi-final against Aberdeen.

The nine-in-a-row chasing side are also in search of another impressive feat, namely to win their fourth treble in as many seasons. After beating St Johnstone 1-0 yesterday in the quarter-finals, they are two games away from achieving a fourth straight Scottish Cup. In addition, they are 12 points clear of second-place Rangers in the league.

“It is amazing,” Lennon said of the 34-game run. “The record could go at any time but we want to keep it running for as long as we can. We come up against all sorts of opposition and we deal with it. I’ve got a very good core of players here: there is something in there that just wants to keep it going.

“We dealt with a difficult one yesterday, mentally and physically, especially after losing to Copenhagen (in the Europa League round of 32 tie) on Thursday. We picked ourselves up again. The good thing was we didn’t have much time to dwell on Thursday. I thought we were the better team in that game but in a couple of minutes we let ourselves down. We got punished for lackadaisical errors, so that is Europe gone for this year. We move on and we’ve got plenty still to play for.”

Now they face Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup semi-final. “They can beat anyone on their day,” Lennon said of their north-east rivals. “The good thing for us is that we are in the semi-final, so we can park that now, because we’ve still got a lot to play for this season.”