Top-flight entertainers live up to their billing in Parkhead thriller

Clinical Celtic show they haven’t lost scoring touch

WHEN the Premiership last convened, these teams knocked in a dozen goals between them. No one came to Celtic Park expecting a goalless draw.

In the end, it was home if not fiscal advantage that told as Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic triumphed in a match in which each team showcased the very best traits of their respective managers.

For Rodgers’ champions, there was more of the devastatingly fluid play that had cut open St Johnstone at will a fortnight ago, while a few familiar defensive failings reared their head after captain Scott Brown was forced off injured.

Neil Lennon’s Hibs side simply refused to lie down and take their medicine. Resolute in their determination to keep two strikers high up the pitch and involve each wherever possible, the Edinburgh men twice hauled themselves back into the contest after half-time.

If Celtic failed to do the ‘very simple’ transfer business that Rodgers felt was required over the summer, then Lennon could scarcely have had a harder rebuild on his hands.

Sorting fresh deals for loan strikers Florian Kamberi and Jamie Maclaren was hard enough but the biggest problem was the gutting of the team’s midfield. Dylan McGeouch, John McGinn and Scott Allan were a talented and well-balanced trio but all three have had to be replaced.

Vykintas Slivka has stepped up to help plug the gaps, while Australian international Mark Milligan has been recruited to provide some steel. However, the real coup has been the arrival of Stevie Mallan.

The former St Mirren star has already equalled the departed three’s combined tally of nine goals for last term, and whipped one of his trademark free-kicks just wide of the post with barely a minute on the clock.

The terms of engagement set, Celtic’s Odsonne Edouard hit the post at the other end and Callum McGregor clipped the bar.

The tempo Celtic had set in their goal blitz at Perth was, if anything, raised after the international break and Rogic was at the heart of it all, opening the scoring in some style.

Mikael Lustig deserves credit for the enterprising change of direction that kicked things off on the right wing, his feed to Rogic inviting the Aussie to work a one-two with McGregor before curling a 20-yard finish beyond Adam Bogdan.

Celtic’s second goal came at the end of a scintillating move that saw Dedryck Boyata jab the ball forward to James Forrest, who in turn brought Rogic into the play. Again, the elastic-limbed midfielder shaped to shoot, a brilliant disguise for the pass that rolled in Olivier Ntcham for a low finish.

Not quite so nimble these days is Brown, whose afternoon was effectively ended by the snaring of the second goal. Although refreshed after a three-week break, the Parkhead captain looked constrained in his movement and had received treatment just minutes before being replaced by Scott Sinclair.

Currently in the final year of his contract, Brown has been earmarked as a potential signing by burgeoning Australian outfit Western Melbourne. At 33, it’s not difficult to see why he might at least be keen to explore what a move to the sunshine Down Under might entail. With Brown off, Rodgers moved McGregor into the deep-lying midfield role and the chances kept coming. A triple let-off for Hibs saw Edouard denied by Bogdan, Sinclair knock the rebound off the post and Forrest get his execution all wrong as he skewed his follow-up wide. Ntcham went close again with a curling shot but Hibs should have pulled one back before half-time. With Kamberi meeting his muscular match in Filip Benkovic, it was the fleetfooted Martin Boyle who carried the greatest threat for Lennon’s team. Recently called up by Australia