KING EDOUARD
Bolingoli believes French striker is heading to the top
BOLI BOLINGOLI says Celtic sharpshooter Odsonne Edouard can reach the very top — just like his big-name cousin Romelu Lukaku.
The Belgian left-back grew up playing football on the streets of Antwerp with the predatory Inter Milan striker and his brother Jordan.
And he has tipped French Under-21 international Edouard to mirror Lukaku’s success after another goal and man-of-the-match display in Saturday’s 6-0 win over Ross County.
The 21-year-old striker is being tracked by Napoli, Borussia Dortmund and a host of English Premier League clubs but Parkhead manager Neil Lennon insists he is going nowhere in the January window.
Yet Thursday’s Europa League clash with Lazio will provide another stage for his talents and team-mate Bolingoli admitted: ‘For sure, he can go to the level of Romelu. Odsonne is still young and is still progressing but in time, for me, he can become a big striker in the football world.
‘The boy has qualities and we have so many qualities in the team to help him. You see how good
TO SAY Celtic were unhappy with the six goals would be inaccurate. Neil Lennon rated the one-sided thumping of Ross County one of the best displays of his two spells as manager and he wasn’t necessarily wrong.
Yet the mild mumping which followed a thumping win over the Highlanders stemmed from the knowledge the Premiership champions should really have scored ten.
The scoreline was just 1-0 at half-time. By then, Callum McGregor had smashed one against the post, County defender Richard Foster had cleared two netbound efforts off the line and visiting keeper Ross Laidlaw had given his agent a few poster saves for the compilation video.
Had Lennon’s side scored five in both halves, it would have been a fair representation of the dominance a superior budget tends to buy a team at this level.
‘It could have been 10-0,’ said left-back Boli Bolingoli. ‘We should have scored ten, for sure, when you see the number of chances we had in the first half. But we can be satisfied and very happy with this result of 6-0.’
One point from their two previous games away to Hibs and Livingston made the reaction here inevitable and predictable.
The last time Celtic lost back-toback league games was in March 2013 — so when Mohamed Elyounoussi finished a flowing passing move inside four minutes to claim the first of his two goals, lightning was never likely to strike twice.
The fact is that Ross County travelled to Glasgow in reasonable shape. The Staggies had beaten St Mirren and Motherwell and drawn with St Johnstone and Kilmarnock in their previous four games.
Yet Parkhead was too big and too slick for a County side which battled hard until half-time before shipping four goals in the first nine minutes after the break.
Laidlaw brilliantly denied James Forrest and an inspired Odsonne Edouard in the opening half. Foster cleared off the line from the Frenchman and stopped a Chris Jullien header. After a sharp Elyounoussi pass, McGregor smashed a low shot against the upright. Ross County were hanging on by their fingernails.
Their grip gave way around the same time as defender Keith Watson’s concentration. In the first minute of the second half, the central defender made a terrible mess of a diving clearance of Jullien’s meat-and-drink delivery into the box and Edouard had time and space to double the hosts’ lead.
The floodgates opened when McGregor calmly slotted in Edouard’s assist off the inside of the post for 3-0 three minutes later. For the visitors, it became one of those days. A game best watched through the cracks of their fingers.
Picked ahead of Hatem Elhamed and Moritz Bauer at right-back, 18-year-old Dutchman Jeremie Frimpong began to relax and enjoy himself.
A minute after the third goal, his cross to the back post picked out an unmarked Edouard, his netbound header skimming the knee of Laidlaw before defender Liam Fontaine got the final touch.
It might have been going in anyway, but an own goal was the verdict.
Playing like a winger, Frimpong had his second assist of the game when his direct running to the goal-line ended in a sharp cutback slammed into the net by Forrest for 5-0.
‘I was really impressed with him,’ said Bolingoli of the teenage new Bhoy. ‘Jeremie has been showing his qualities in the last few weeks at training, so he deserved to start the game.
‘I believe in his quality, I think everybody at the whole club believes in his quality and he showed why.
‘He is young but he can play and he can play in this team. I am very happy for him.’
The jury remains rather less sure of substitute Vakoun Bayo. There’s an untidiness and lack of control to much of what the Ivory Coast striker does, yet Edouard’s replacement had a hand in the sixth goal when his low ball across the face of goal was turned towards goal by Bolingoli and Elyounoussi applied the finish from close range.
To say Thursday’s Europa League home game with Lazio will be trickier than this is like saying Boris Johnson has an aversion to combs. For Celtic, these hopelessly one-sided domestic games do little to enhance their readiness for Europe, but it’s hardly an unusual state of affairs. It’s a reality they just have to deal with.
‘It feels good to win again because the last two games we didn’t take three points,’ said Bolingoli. ‘Now we are back.
‘It was a good game for the whole team and, hopefully, we can continue like this for the next game against Lazio, which will be so important for us.
‘We are playing at home and that is also to our advantage.
‘It’s going to be a tough game, but we go into it with a lot of confidence.
‘The objective if you want to go far in the competition is to win the group.
‘So we go in to every game to win and to be No 1.
‘We’re not playing in the Europa League to be the No 2 or finish last. We will give everything to finish in first place.’
Needless to say the same applies to the Premiership where Bolingoli claims the improvement of arch-rivals Rangers is a source of dressing room indifference. Although one suspects the Ibrox club’s draw against Hearts yesterday wouldn’t have gone unnoticed...
‘We are just looking at our games,’ said Bolingoli prior to the Tynecastle stalemate.
‘What Rangers are doing is good, they are doing well. Good for them. But we will just stay focused on our games until the end of the season.
‘Only then we will see who is going to be the champions.’