Neil Lennon admits Celtic were more industrious than inspiring in Saturday's 1-0 home win over Inverness in the Scottish Premier League.

Midfielder Joe Ledley scored after 16 minutes to extend the Hoops' domestic winning run to 17 games but it was not the "devastating" performance Lennon witnessed from his side in Wednesday night's 4-0 win over Hearts at Tynecastle.

Celtic survived a Caley flurry of sorts after Hoops defender Daniel Majstorovic was shown a straight red card on the hour mark by referee Steven McLean for a professional foul on Caley midfielder Jonny Hayes, who later admitted that he thought the Sweden international had got the ball.

The pressure came back off when Inverness defender Steve Williams was sent packing in the 77th minute for picking up the second of two yellow cards for a foul on Georgios Samaras and Lennon was able to savour his 100th game in charge of the Parkhead club, even if it was less comfortable than the trip to Gorgie.

"Things are going very well," he said. "But here is a long way to go.

"I was wary of the Inverness game, off the back of Wednesday night.

"The lads hadn't much time to recover and go again but their attitude and quality at times was fantastic.

"It wasn't a vintage performance from this team but it was pretty solid against a very tough Inverness team who had a week's rest and who freshened things up a little bit.

"We toyed with the idea of freshening things up ourselves but we decided just to stick with the majority of players who played so well on Wednesday night."

The Hoops boss, set to appeal Majstorovic's red card, reserved special praise for Samaras who was moved to the lone striker's role when Celtic were reduced to 10 men.

"I am delighted with him," said the former Celtic skipper.

"I thought he was gigantic, especially when we were down to 10 men.

"He took the responsibility of leading the line, ran the ball for us when we needed him to and challenged for every header.

"He was backed up Ledley, Scott Brown, James Forrest, and Charlie Mulgrew, who had a great game again, and my back four was excellent in the second half.

"My goalkeeper didn't have a save to make although there were a few dangerous crosses we had to deal with.

"In the main, we were in the ascendancy until the sending-off and that gave Inverness a psychological lift but the way the players conducted themselves was very pleasing."

Ledley was also happy enough with the win that keeps the pressure on Rangers, who had won 4-1 at Dunfermline earlier in the day.

"Obviously Wednesday was a great performance but we knew Inverness was going to be a totally different game," said the Wales midfielder.

"It is always difficult against Inverness, they are a good team and they passed the ball very well and made it hard for us.

"But the main thing was getting the three points and we are happy that our run continues.

"It is always nice to get on the scoresheet and I hope that can continue but it is a team game and I just want to work hard for the team."

Inverness manager Terry Butcher took little comfort from the improvement in his side's performance from last weekend's 2-0 William Hill Scottish Cup defeat at home to Celtic.

He said: "We were better in the first 10 minutes than we were in the whole of last week's game and that gave us a good platform to go on.

"But we didn't do enough with the extra man to get the equaliser and put Celtic under real pressure.

"It's all well and good saying you only lost 1-0 to Celtic but you still lose the game so I'm disappointed."