CELTIC 3 – 0 MOTHERWELL
CELTIC swept Motherwell aside in the opening 45 minutes at Celtic Park this evening as the Champions set about getting the first of four wins over the Festive period.
With Hibs and the Rangers playing out a goalless draw at Easter Road, the Champions moved back to the top of the Premiership one point ahead of the Three Day Wonders and with a game in hand.
Goals from Anthony Ralston, a Scotty Sinclair penalty – which we actually scored and the best of the bunch from young substitute Mikey Johnson who had replaced Odsonne Edouard with the French striker seeming to be suffering from a dead-leg.
Hopefully he’s fine for the weekend but Johnston certainly grabbed his chance to play up top for Celtic when with three Motherwell defenders around him he found space to get his shot away and blasted it Ito the roof of the net – spectacular! That made it 3-0 just before the interval.
Goal number 2 came from an Honest Mistake that went horribly wrong for Bobby Madden’s Assistant running the North Stand touchline.
With the ball a few metres away from him and clearly over the line for s goal-kick, the official instead signalled play on. Celtic were in a tight spot but the excellent Emilio Izaguirre and Filip Benkovic maintained their composure and work the ball into the midfield and in a devastating break James Forrest was taken out of the game inside the penalty area.
Not even Bobby Madden could deny that it was a stonewaller and Scotty Sinclair thumped it low and hard into the bottom left hand corner to double the lead with half an hour played.
Celtic had opened the scoring on 27 minutes when fine footwork and vision from Odsonne Edouard found the adventurous Anthony Ralston breaking through the Motherwell lines. His shot was low and hard and went under Gillespie in the Motherwell goals.
Ralston ran towards the Standing Section thrilled.
The second half was played out as a formality with Ntcham coming close on a handful of occasions. Lewis Morgan replaced Sinclair, who got a well deserved standing ovation, and Morgan did his best to impress.
But it was game over and as the night got colder the crowd’s attention turned to news from Easter Road.
Scott Brown on his 500th appearance picked up the sponsors man of the Match and who could argue with that call.
Emilio Izaguirre and Anthony Ralston- who took out James Forrest with a two footed challenge – which confused Bobby Madden, were also excellent as was McGregor and Mikey Johnston.
Craig Gordon? He had nothing to do all night.
Celtic now turn our attention to Dundee at the weekend, one down three to go…
