Celtic winger James Forrest urged his teammates to pass their latest test of character and regain top spot in the Premiership.

Sunday's 2-0 loss at Hibs saw the champions slip to third in the Premiership, although the Hoops do have a game in hand on new leaders Rangers.

At the halfway stage last year Celtic were five points clear the chasing pack, while in Brendan Rodgers' first season in charge Forrest and co went undefeated throughout.

This time out Rodgers' side face an improved challenge from their rivals. Forrest, however, is confident the Hoops will step up to the plate.

"We have done it before," he said ahead of Motherwell's visit to Celtic Park.

"It shows a different mentality - when you are top of the league, that you can stay there, and if you go a few points behind, you can get back.

"We have shown a lot of character before and we are definitely going to need to show that again.

"First and foremost we focus on ourselves. We go into every game being confident about ourselves.

"We know the ability we have got in our squad and we need to make sure we keep showing that and obviously show that more in the games to come.

"We have four games before the winter break and every game is going to be difficult."

Celtic's defeat on Sunday means only eight points separate the top eight teams in the league and Forrest admits things have moved on in the Premiership since their unbeaten league season under Brendan Rodgers.

"Even last year compared to the manager's first year, the league improved," the Scotland international said.

"You can obviously see with the league table, it's improved again. Everyone is strengthening their squad and making it hard.

"We are going to really need to be at our best in the next few games to try and get to the top of the table.

"There's a few teams that have done really well and they deserve to be up there with the results they have been getting.

"The last couple of months we have put in good performances and got a lot of good results.

"Sunday was our first defeat for a wee while and we just need to get back to winning ways on Wednesday and push on for the next few games.

"It's not nice losing, and the way we conceded the goals on Sunday, it's good that we have a game coming so quickly that we can get back to winning ways."