Moussa Dembele’s late victor gave Celtic a 1-0 Old Firm victory over Rangers and booked a place in the Scottish League Cup final on Sunday.
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James Forrest had two efforts on goal before defender Erik Sviat-chenko had the ball in the Gers net only for the referee to rule it out for a push.
Rangers will be without playmaker Niko Kranjcar through injury as they face Glasgow rivals Celtic in the Scottish League Cup semi-final.
“As you can see today we have actually outplayed them at times and were very unfortunate to concede late on”.
“The best way to keep your critics quiet is to go and win games of football so that’s what we have to do”.
However, talk of achieving the feat was a particular feature of Ronny Deila’s tenure as boss, which ended at the end of last season, after which he was replaced by former Swansea and Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers.
But McCoist said: “It probably sounds insane for me to say it but I think finishing second would be more than acceptable”.
Barton was suspended by the club last month following an argument in training and he hasn’t featured since the 5-1 Old Firm derby defeat in September. We just need to see how our games are going.
“It’s a fresh start for us”.
Speaking at Hampden on Sunday, he suggested there was evidence that ‘the so-called gap is a lot narrower than people think’. “We’ll look to bring our A game and if we do that, as we saw earlier in the season, we have a great chance to win”. No one feels it more than him but we are very much together.
“If you have a poor performance, with the ramifications to that level, you will remember it for a long long time”.
The Celtic boss added: “I’m not anxious about the gap, that’s for others to worry about. It’s great for me if I can come to Celtic and win things and I’m sure all the new boys will stay the same”.
“We’re obviously feeling disappointed and frustrated but I think there are a lot of positives to take out the game”. For us, I was pleased with the performance’.
He said: “The balance in the team is good at the moment – that’s unfortunate for the likes of Leigh and Patrick Roberts”.
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“I think I did okay, that’s what I thought personally, but it’s up to the manager to decide whether I play again this week.”
