Brendan Rodgers played a blinder by having a pop at Rangers' old management team in his press conference last week, says Kris Boyd.
Much of the narrative around Celtic at the moment has been around the fans' unrest towards the board and there have been protests carried out to air those views at the last two matches.
But, leading into the cup win over Partick Thistle at the weekend, Rodgers attempted to switch the focus.
He gave his backing to Rangers boss Russell Martin and aimed a dig towards Barry Ferguson, Billy Dodds and Neil McCann for commenting on the situation in the media despite being in Martin's shoes not so long ago.
Boyd says it was a "stroke of genius" from the Northern Irishman.
Asked if he was surprised by the comments, he told the Scottish Sun's Go Ballistic podcast: "No, because you say about having more faces than Big Ben. That's exactly what Brendan did on Friday in his presser.
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"Nobody came out at the weekend talking about the Celtic board, he didn't have to answer any questions about that. He just flipped the whole thing around. And now, everybody is saying about Barry Ferguson."
When it was suggested that was "clever" from Rodgers, Boyd added: "100 per cent. You play the game.
"That's what top managers do. Everybody is going to say he was having a go at the old Rangers management team, which he was. But it was a stroke of genius from Brendan Rodgers in terms of 'I'm shifting this away from Celtic altogether."
The former Ibrox striker also offered a defence of his former teammate Ferguson and his coaches from the tail end of last season.
"Barry is on the radio, he has got his column," he insisted. "If you're asked questions then you need to answer them. If you don't, there's no point getting paid to do it. Billy Dodds is the same, Neil McCann aswell.
"Let's not be kidded. You can't make up anything and say 'Rangers are playing well, they've just not been lucky'. They've not been good."
