Brendan Rodgers insists he knows why Celtic struggled in their Scottish Cup victory over Livingston. 

David Martindale's side was more than a match for the champions on their own patch as they ran the current holders close this afternoon. 

Twice the visitors equalised as they pegged the Hoops back, but a Daizen Maeda hat-trick inside the last five minutes, plus a Kyogo goal meant Celtic ran out 4-2 winners in the end.

Rodgers was not best pleased with his side's performance, but he is adamant is purely because of the players they're missing due to injury - such as Callum McGregor and Cameron Carter-Vickers.

He told Viaplay after the game "We got there in the end, the scoreline makes it look more comfortable than it was.

"Credit to my players but we didn't perform anywhere near the level that we wanted to. There were a few good individual performances and the players kept going right until the end, which was great.

"Daizen getting his hat-trick was nice, a lot of our creative play came down the right and Daizen finished it off on the left. Also a big compliment to Livingston, it's been a difficult season for them but they came and made it very difficult for us. They gave us a real challenge and we had to overcome that.

"I know why (we struggled). If you're missing the amount of players that we were, the football won't be the same. So once we get those players back, the level of performance will increase."

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Then speaking to the BBC, he added: "It was too easy for them at times. We gave away so much space, that was the downside to the performance. In fairness to them they exploited it with two really good goals, and we weren't good enough in those moments.

"We always want to perform. There's probably not another team in the country that's held up to winning and performing. Other teams will grind it out and get a result, we know we have to win and play well. We didn't play well today, little patches were OK, but we won and we're into the semi-final. That makes me very happy."