Kilmarnock 0 Celtic 4 – Lennon's View, Match Highlights and Photos from Rugby Park

Celtic at last looked like the Scottish Champions that they are last night with an emphatic 4-0 win over Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. This is a ground where Celtic often struggle especially since the Ayrshire club replaced one of the best grass pitches in Scottish football with that plastic monstrosity, so it’s worth criticising it after a thumping Celtic win rather than that after a disappointing result and another terrible game caused by the surface.

Indeed it’s worth noting that Celtic played very well last night – on the plastic – so that should indicate that we might even get an even better performance at the weekend against Motherwell at Celtic Park. That game is on Saturday with a 3pm kick-off incidentally.

Neil Lennon was pleased, describing the performance as outstanding but says he’s not going to get carried away! Speaking to Celtic TV after the match the under-fire Celtic manager had this to say:

“I’m delighted with the performance, it’s night and day from what we saw at the weekend and I got the reaction from the team and the players that I was looking for. It was an outstanding performance and that’s our marker, so we can’t drop off that between now and the end of the season,” Neil Lennon stated, as reported by the official Celtic website.

“We’ve set a good level tonight and I want more of that. I thought Jonjoe was excellent, and considering he’s only trained with us for one day I think he had a superb game. He was calm, defended well, got forward at every opportunity and looked like he can play in the position.

“I thought they all played well tonight, I thought there was a real groove about us and I thought some of our football was fantastic on a bitterly cold night in difficult conditions. The attitude was spot on.

“It’s a step in the right direction, that’s all it is. We’re not going to get carried away. I whipped them at the weekend because I thought it was the right thing to do and they responded in the way I thought they would do. It’s been a good night’s work.”

“I got the reaction that I was looking for, it was an outstanding performance. That’s our marker so we can’t drop off that between now and the end of the season. I want far more of that.

“I’m delighted for Albian, he played very well. He gets frustrated when he doesn’t score. He’s had injury problems and fitness problems but he’s bided his time and he looked really good tonight.

“The conditioning work that he’s done has paid dividends and it was good to get him 90 minutes. Hopefully we can get a run of games out of him now and he can show the Celtic fans what he’s really all about.”