Well that will certainly help you recover from your Bank Holiday weekend hangover, and may even be the cause of yet another one tomorrow morning! Celtic put in an absolutely fantastic performance today in front of a boisterous away crowd as we witnessed Angeball at its finest as Celtic annihilated Dundee United 9-0 at Tannadice.
I have been saying over the last few weeks that for as good as Celtic have looked so far this season, I believed they still had a few gears to go up and today they found top gear in possibly one of the best performances we have witnessed since Ange Postecoglou took over last summer. It really was a perfect team performance, with most of the goals coming via fantastic build up play, often seeing players taking just one touch before finding a teammate.
The game actually started with our opponents looking threatening and if it wasn’t for a brave piece of goalkeeping from Joe Hart we could have found ourselves a goal behind early on. The Englishman pulled off a good save before showing no fear by putting his body on the line to claw the rebound away from Steven Fletcher who caught Hart on the head with his studs whilst going for the ball. After a seven minute delay Celtic got to work and opened the scoring with a wonderful piece of team play.
Liel Abada, back in the starting line up ahead of Daizen Maeda, played a perfectly weighted pass into Jota who in turn delivered a lovely sweeping pass to Kyogo who took one touch before burying the opener. It was a goal that reminded me of the start of last season when the attacking trio of Kyogo, Jota and Abada were terrorising defences throughout Scotland.
As we have saw this season already, once Celtic take a lead it looks ominous for the opposition, and in this case that’s the understatement of the year.
It was on the 40th minute that the Japanese striker got his, and Celtic’s, second of the day. This time it was all about the diminutive forward as he received the ball outside the area and unleashed a ferocious strike without even taking the time to look up beforehand. By the time he did look up he will have saw the ball ripple the top corner of the net as the Celtic fans behind the goal went wild.
Celtic were looking perilous by this stage and it was only a few minutes later when Kyogo completed his hat-trick after great work from both Matt O’Riley and Liel Abada left him with the simple task of tapping in for his third goal of the day. Dundee United will have been praying for half time but Celtic were to inflict more agony on them before they heard that whistle as O’Riley and Abada linked up yet again before the former supplied Jota with a gilt-edge chance that he calmly dispatched to send Celtic in 4-0 at half-time.
It felt like half-time had came at a bad time for Celtic who were looking incredible but thankfully the break did nothing to stop the teams flow as they started the second half just as they had ended the first. Five minutes in and it was goal number 5 as Liel Abada went from provider to goalscorer as he found the net after yet another piece of fantastic build-up play involving Jota and O’Riley once again.
It would only take another five minutes before number 6 was to arrive. This time it was Josip Juranovic who’s name would be added to the score sheet, netting his first ever goal from play for Celtic after scoring a handful of times from the penalty spot last season. After Matt O’Riley’s free kicked was blocked by his own player it rebounded to Juranovic who struck a lovely low drive into the corner of the net from outside the area.
On the hour mark it was time for number seven. Again it was wonderful build up play from Celtic as Jota and Hatate combined to leave Abada with yet another easy finish from inside the box. Celtic’s build up play was a thing of beauty throughout and often, like on this occasion, the finish was the least impressive part of the move as all the hard work had been done for the goalscorer. The speed of the passes and the decision making was just immense.
With a raft of substitutions being made by Ange Postecoglou there was a worry that Celtic may take their foot of the gas but it wasn’t to be and on the 77th minute it was two of those subs combining that created the eighth goal. Summer signing Aaron Mooy lofted a lovely ball over the defence and Daizen Maeda unselfishly picked out the man who took his starting spot today, Liel Abada, and the Israeli did the rest, chipping the keeper who had came rushing out of his goal to close the attacker down.
It was a beautiful finish by the young winger and a perfect way to complete his hat-trick. In scoring his third of the day he and Kyogo become the first pair to score hat-tricks in the same match since Gary Hooper and Anthony Stokes against Aberdeen back in 2010, in yet another 9-0 win for Celtic.
Celtic weren’t done yet and after waiting 50 games for his first Celtic goal, Carl Starfelt didn’t wait long to make it number two, crashing in a header off the post to register Celtic’s ninth goal of the afternoon. Unfortunately Celtic couldn’t quite make it 10 with Callum McGregor having a perfect opportunity to do so but placing an effort from the edge of the box just wide of the post.
All in all this has to go down as one of the best performances of the Ange Postecoglou era. We listen close when our manager talks and since being here he has consistently discussed how he wants to see this side play, what he expects from each and every player and his vision of what he wants this Celtic team to look like and I have to say that today it was clear as day for all to see.
This is exactly the type of performances he envisions from this squad and you just know rather than go into the changing room and shower his players with praise he will be insisting that today’s display is exactly the type of showing he expects week in week out from this group of players. As the man himself says – We never stop.
I would be here all day if I was to go through each man in team and discuss how good their performance was so I will just have to pick a few. It was great to see Abada starting on the right wing once again and it’s incredible to think we are getting these types of performances from a player so young.
As a winger he has it all. Speed, strength, intelligence. He can both score goals and create them. Daizen Maeda is a great player who gives absolutely everything for the team but as an attacking threat Abada is on another level. A front line of Abada, Kyogo and Jota is enough to strike fear into any opposition.
Kyogo proved yet again that he is a top level striker. He is so calm in front of goal it almost reminds you of a certain Swedish striker who played here a few decades ago. He very rarely wastes goalscoring opportunities. He must be a dream for the wingers and midfielders in our team to play with as he is always finding space on the pitch. He really is a joy to watch.
I also think Matt O’Riley was excellent today. The Danish under-21 star has a lovely footballing style where he makes everything look so effortless. He never overcomplicates things, instead he just takes one or two touches before picking out a perfect pass. What a great find he was when we signed him for just £1.5m from MK Dons. The biggest compliment I can give him is that somehow he has managed to ease our worries that Tom Rogic would be irreplaceable.
After a trip up north to Dingwall to face Ross County in the League Cup on Wednesday we head back home to Parkhead were we will take on theRangers in the first Glasgow Derby of the season. Produce a performance similar to today and we will absolutely wipe the floor with them.
Conall McGinty
