THAT SIX IN THROAT Celts rout on own but there’s still a nagging doubt over No.1

Celtic may have scored six – but all anyone was left wondering about was the one.

Moussa Dembele’s double took him to half a dozen in a fortnight.

Scott Sinclair stayed right on Jimmy McGrory’s coat-tails with his sixth in his first six league games, chasing the legend’s record of eight.

Leigh Griffiths marked his comeback after a month out with a goal inside two minutes of his return from the bench.

And Tom Rogic and James Forrest have now racked up 11 between them from the middle of the park.

It was all good, all the way for the Hoops as an attacking force.

The 40-yarder Dorus de Vries lost to Souleymane Coulibaly as they went a goal behind, though, and his subsequent half- time hooking set the alarm bells off for the keeper Brendan Rodgers has hung his hat on.

It’s the 12th goal the Dutchman has shipped in five games from only 19 shots on target.

And despi te the claim that a tightness in his chest after losing the goal was the reason for replacing him with Craig Gordon at the break, it’s just as plausible that the goal cau sed a ti g htne s s in his manager’s.

Still chasing a league clean sheet this season, the way they started the game it was almost inconceivable that this wasn’t going to be the day they did it.

It’s hard to remember a more one-sided first half hour.

The possession stats must have been as balanced as a feather and a breeze block sitting on a set of scales. But for all that, Killie were so dogged and organised you could sense the frustration growing in the Hoops from a pretty early stage.

Ten months ago the Rugby Park side came here and squeaked out a 0- 0 draw, and despite the fact there were only two survivors from that side after Lee Clark’s summer fumigation of the club, they’d clearly come with the same intention.

And the Hoops were suffering from the same issues they had trying to break down Alloa in midweek.

Plenty of the bal l, winning it back high up the park when they lost it, but finding it impossible to poke and prod for holes where no holes existed.

There will have been a few upper thighs raw with Mitre imprints climbing into the Killie bath last night with the number of blocks their defenders were making to deny Dembele, For rest and Sinclai r in particular.

From out of nowhere though, Killie rocked the house to its foundations.

Coulibaly was nowhere, 40 yards out on the left flank when he cut inside a slack challenge from Scott Brown then launched an absolute exocet.

Magnificent strike that it was, though, de Vries should sti ll have been favourite to save it.

But you could see when it was about halfway there that the Dutchman had his feet in concrete, and by the time he’d read it, the ball had flames on it as it dropped from the sky over his head.

It was a bench- clearing job for Clark and his backroom team to celebrate the Ivory Coast striker’s eighth of the season, virtually every one a stunner.

But the keeper’s reaction, booting the post with a fury, suggests he knew he should have done better.

Ki l l ie’s problem – every domest ic team’s problem coming here – is thinking that getting one means the job’s done when it’s not even close. And within six minutes not only had they shed their lead, they were behind. Dembele’s first came from a Nir Bitton ball into the box which found a rare gap, his f inish sweetly clipped past Jamie MacDonald. And hi s s e cond wa s masterful, catching a brilliant Kieran Tierney cutback flush and smashing it into the roof of the net from 12 yards. The sight of Cra i g Gor don emerging f rom the tunnel for the second hal f came as a shock to the support but was met with fairly strong applause – de Vries may have been talked up by the manager but he’s yet to back up the raves with saves.

But the No. 1 was barely troubled as Celtic proceeded to bury Killie under a second-half avalanche of goals.

Forrest slashed in from the right, played a nice delayed one-two with Rogic, and for the third time this season curled a cute finish home with the outside of his right boot.

Rodgers took the chance to give Dembele a breather ahead of Man City in the Champions League in midweek, with the luxury of Griffiths to bring off the bench for his first action in four weeks.

And it took the striker less than two minutes to get himself on the scoresheet , poaching a towering header from Jozo Simunovic a yard from goal to head into the roof of the net.

His class told even more, however, when he won a penalty for himself after another five minutes – then graciously handed the ball over to Sinclair with the record beckoning.

The outcome was never in doubt as he went hard and low to his left.

By the death you could feel nothing but pity for Ki l lie keeper MacDonald as a bumbler from Rogic from the edge of the box escaped him as he dived to his right and nestled into the bottom corner.

Afterwards Sinclair admitted: “Leigh giving me the ball was great. It goes to show the togetherness in the team.

“He was on the pens but he gave it to me to get to six goals in six games and I have to thank him for that.”