Brendan Rodgers has reminded his Celtic players that they will "go down in history" after their unbeaten domestic run came to an end on Sunday.
The Hoops, who broke their own 100-year-old British record when they made it 63 domestic games unbeaten against St Johnstone in November, saw their streak halted at 69 at the hands of Hearts.
Celtic found themselves on the receiving end of a 4-0 thrashing at Tynecastle in the Scottish Premiership through goals from Harry Cochrane, Kyle Lafferty and a brace from David Milinkovic.
Rodgers was keen to put his first defeat by a Scottish club as Celtic boss into context and revealed that he praised his players for their achievement.
"Firstly, congratulations to Hearts, they were the better team today and deserved to win the game," the Northern Irishman told Sky Sports News. "I have said over many months, if the players weren't human I would say they would never lose. It was always going to happen. It is not nice when it does.
"I wanted to pull the players together and let them be aware that they were better than us today and we have to accept that. What they have done is absolutely amazing but to use this feeling that they haven't felt for 18 months, use it as a lever moving forward and let's learn from it and be better for it.
"We are a bigger target because of what we have done, we accept that and now go and look to win our next game. My feeling is pride for the players. The run of 69 games comes to an end; a real historic achievement, remarkable.
"The players will go down in history because I am not sure it will be done again but certainly in our lifetimes it won't be done and the players can take pride in that. I thanked them for that at the end."
Celtic will return to action on Wednesday when they host Partick Thistle at Parkhead.
Giuseppe Labellarte
