CELTIC were on Scottish Cup thin ice until Sebastian Tounekti sealed a fairly unconvincing 2-0 triumph over Auchinleck Talbot at Rugby Park last night.
The champions toiled in their fourth round encounter against the game part-timers and it had taken until after the half-hour mark before Johnny Kenny had claimed the breakthrough goal with a clipped finish at the near post following a right-wing cross from Luke McCowan.
But Martin O’Neill was clearly a concerned manager as he stood on the touchline throughout a second-half where his players could not pierce the defensive set-up of their sixth-tier opponents.
TAKE THE HIGH ROAD…Sebastian Tounekti watches his shot fly towards its target for Celtic’s second goal against Auchinleck Talbot.
That was until the 85th minute when the twinkle-toed Tunisian, a 61st-minute replacement for evergreen James Forrest, cut in from the left and curled an unstoppable effort from the edge of the penalty box high over the stranded Willie Muir for the strike that sealed a last-16 home meeting with Dundee next month.
Twenty-three-year-old Tounekti, a £5.2million arrival in the summer, beamed afterwards and told Celtic TV: “Everyone knows I want to help the team more, to create goals and to assist and, of course, to score myself.
“It’s a thing I’ve been doing a lot of on the training pitch with the coaches, so for me to see that goal and get that feeling was amazing.
“Hopefully, it will be one of many because I want to keep going and to help the team score goals and make assists.”
Next up for Tounekti and his team-mates is the Europa League clash with Bologna in Italy on Thursday before they prepare for the title crunch against Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday.
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