JORDAN Jones, the Kilmarnock winger, has accused Celtic captain Scott Brown of trying to intimidate him during Saturday's 3-1 defeat at Parkhead. While a simmering feud between the two players ended with Jones scoring an equaliser on the day and Brown picking up a booking, ultimately the newly crowned Champions won the day. While results on the day meant that the Ayrshire side can no longer finish in the top six, Jones feels that the display proved that Lee McCulloch's side have the talent and determination to avoid being sucked into a post-split relegation dogfight.

"He [Brown] tries to intimidate you, but that’s the way it is," said Jones. "He fouled me and then had a little chirp at me, so I gave him some back. It’s part of his image to try and intimidate, but he’s not going to intimidate me, so he can try what he wants. He was the one who ended up with a yellow card.

“It doesn’t really matter if it’s him or anything one else if someone is trying to give you some on the pitch," the Englishman added. "Players deal with it differently. Some stay quiet, I give it back. Celtic have very, very good players and you have to respect them, but you only respect them so much. At the end of the day, it’s 11 v 11 and he was the one who tried to intimidate me.

“We’re devastated not to make top six. If you look at the season, we have gone on a lot of runs when we could have kicked on, but it wasn’t to be. But we can’t beat ourselves up about it. We just have to try and finish as high as we can. We’ve been doing really well and the lads have a lot of belief, so we can’t allow this result to knock our confidence.

“There’s no hiding the gulf between Celtic and the rest. They deserve to be champions. But it’s about Hearts on Friday now and we’re full of confidence that we can take three points, no doubt about it. Do I feel we have enough quality to avoid a relegation scrap? 100 per cent."