Celtic defender Greg Taylor has hit back at Jim Goodwin after the St Mirren manager accused him of going down too easily in the penalty box.

The Buddies boss criticised the Hoops left back last week, claiming he should be “embarrassed” by how easily he went down to win his side a penalty during their 4-0 win in Paisley.

Goodwin insisted it was time for persistent offenders to be “named and shamed”.

But Taylor has rejected the accusations, saying: “It’s not true, and I was disappointed to be fair, because there was more than one contact in the move.

“I’m not someone who would go down easy, and unfortunately he’s felt the need to comment. I’ve never been accused of that in the past.

“Am I hurt by those comments? No, if it’s not true.

“He was maybe hurting as they had lost the game, I don’t know, you’d need to ask Jim that.

“I don’t want to label it as anything, it was Jim’s words. He felt the need to speak out on it, and certainly I didn’t believe that to the case and I don’t think many others did.

“It is what it is. It was a foul, it was a penalty, so I’ll draw a line under it now and hopefully I won’t speak about it again.”

Celtic made it four wins in a row as they hit back from a goal down to beat St Johnstone 2-1 in Perth.

They remain 18 points behind Rangers but Taylor insists no-one at Parkhead is thinking about throwing in the towel.

“I think we can still improve, but today was another positive and another win, and we go on to Aberdeen on Wednesday.

“The confidence is growing and winning does that. There’s a good winning mentality inside the dressing room, and certainly coming back from a goal down today was good, so we’re pleased.

“Do we need to keep going despite being the gap at the top? Exactly. We can’t give anything up without a fight. We’re just looking at it one game at a time and it’s on to Wednesday night to try and get another three points.

“We’re fighting for our futures, 100 per cent. Every season and every game is an opportunity to impress and do the club proud, so every game we aim to get the three points for the club and for the boys.

“You can’t ever rest on your laurels and I think that’s showed this season.

“We’ve won so many trophies domestically in a row, and we’ve got a massive fight on our hands this season, and we can’t ever rest on our laurels.”