CAVALIER Celtic were a roaring success in their six-goal mauling of stunned St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park last night.
The champions were unstoppable as they lay siege to Ross Sinclair’s goal as Kyogo Furuhashi (2), Paulo Bernardo, Callum McGregor, Daizen Maeda and Adam Idah fired in the strikes that emphasised the visitors’ supremacy.
There was also a controversial VAR call to wipe out what looked like a perfectly good goal from Maeda while the contest was still stalemated at 0-0.
Luke McCowan, a late substitute for McGregor, was out of luck with a sweeping low drive that took the merest of touches off the glove of the overworked netminder to divert onto the inside of the left-hand post to deny the deadline-day signing his second Hoops counter.
THUMBS UP…Brendan Rodgers acknowledges the Celtic fans after another impressive display.
The Celtic support maintained rousing backing throughout and now Brendan Rodgers’ men are aiming to big noises in the Westfalenstadion on Tuesday night when they take on Borussia Dortmund in their second outing in the Champions League.
The Irishman was more than satisfied with his side’s relentless display against the Perth outfit who were overrun after a 15-minute period of jousting between the combatants.
Beaming Rodgers said: “It was everything you would want from your team – intensity, technique, hunger, quality – so I’m very, very pleased.
“I said before the game that this was an opportunity to really show our attitude and our mentality, and I thought we were so good in the game.
“There was a lot of noise before about Dortmund and the Champions League and everything else, but our perspective was this is still a really important game for us and we want to arrive at the opportunity in the best possible way we can.
“And I don’t think the players could have done any more from the first whistle to the very end, their attitude in the game was top level.”
PERTHQUAKE…Callum McGregor and his team-mates celebrate the captain’s sublime strike to make it 4-0 in the six-goal romp against St Johnstone.
Rodgers, speaking to Celtic TV, continued: “The team is very well synchronised in how they press, how they move, how they close the spaces and the area that I want us to be different in than any other team – the counter-press.
“And that takes away opportunities against you, you’re not going to have 100 per cent possession, I don’t know what the stats are, but we certainly respected the period when we didn’t have the ball and worked to shard to get the ball back.”
The Hoops gaffer, who has seen his side score 20 goals in the Premiership without conceding any, added: “Now we’ve got this out of the way with a great performance, we know we can go there with real confidence.
“We’ve virtually got one day to define our idea for the game, and our plan, and then we’ll travel there and it’s fantastic for the supporters.
“It’s a dream and they can live it.
“We’re going to a great stadium and we’re going to go there to show all the qualities that will hopefully give us an opportunity to get the result.”
