Ice-cold Celtic turn up the heat on Reykjavik in six-goal rout Parkhead men take out frustration on Icelandic minnows after Bolingoli saga

half-time. The game was over when the second half got underway. But Greg Taylor quickly headed home a Hatem Elhamed cross from close range to open his account for Celtic, Odsonne Edouard got in on the act with his fourth strike in three matches and Elyounoussi bagged his second at the death.

Celtic will now face the winners of the match between Ferencvaros of Hungary and Djurgardens of Sweden, which will take place in Budapest tonight, at home next week. They will be hopeful they can win that and travel far in Europe, to the group stages at the very least, following this convincing six-goal rout.

Bolingoli, whose failure to self-isolate on his return to this country was a breach of Covid-19 safety regulations and led to the Scottish government requesting that Celtic’s matches against St Mirren and Aberdeen were postponed, was conspicuous by his absence inside the empty arena. Whether he is sighted at the stadium again is a moot point.

We should, though, be seeing far more of Albian Ajeti in the weeks and months to come. The Swiss striker, a £5m capture from West Ham last week, started on the bench. But he made his debut in the 72nd minute with the scoreline at 5-0 when he came on for Ryan Christie.

The forward had little chance to show what he can offer during his brief time on the park. But the fact that Ajeti, Edouard and Patryk

Klimala all featured during the 90 minutes underlined the firepower that Lennon now has at his disposal. Last term he was forced to field a winger up front due to lack of cover in that position.

Elyounoussi showed good predatory instincts to get in front of Aoalsteinsson and bring down a Jullien long ball just inside the visitors’ box early on. He rounded keeper Beitir Olafsson and netted with ease to calm any jitters.

Elhamed was preferred to Jeremie Frimpong at rightback and made his first start of the new campaign. He set up Celtic’s second in the 12th minute when he squared into the six-yard box.

Edouard failed to make a clean connection. But Aoalsteinsson was unable to get out of the way of the forward’s miscued shot and unwittingly turned the ball into his own net.

There was nothing wrong with the contact Jullien made when Ryan Christie whipped a corner into the Reyjkjavik area in the 31st minute. He rose well and bulleted an unstoppable header beyond Olafsson.

Elyounoussi, Edouard, Scott Brown and Callum McGregor all had attempts cleared off the line before referee Sebastian Gishamer blew for half-time. But Taylor added a fourth soon after play restarted following link-up play between James Forrest, Christie and Elhamed. Edouard showed fine footwork before rattling in a fifth.

Olivier Ntcham replaced Brown, Patryk Klimala took over from Edouard and Ajeti came on for Christie. Ntcham supplied Elyounoussi for the sixth in injury-time.

It is doubtful this mismatch would have attracted a sell-out crowd and generated the sort of atmosphere which Celtic Park is renowned on European nights if fans had been allowed to attend.