Luis Palma takes Celtic chance with hat trick in Sligo friendly

Luis Palma was impressive as Celtic beat Sligo Rovers in a friendly match in Ireland. The Scottish Champions travelled to the West Coast for the game at The Showgrounds…

Brendan Rodgers picked a team that was blended between experience and youth with first team players being supplemented by B Team players. Clearly the manager wanted to use the fixture to give his the players that have struggled for game time in the last few weeks the opportunity to have minutes on the pitch.

Bain’s Blunders 

Despite scoring early through Luis Palma, Celtic found themselves down 2-1 after two efforts evaded Scott Bain. The third pick Celtic goalkeeper will have been disappointed to have been beaten by both of the shots.

Celtic controlled the game for large periods and had a number of chances. However, there was no breakthrough. Brendan will have been pleased with first team players like Luke McCowan, Palma, Stephen Welsh, Maik Nawrocki and Yang getting valuable minutes but he’ll have been equally delighted as his side pressed on and got the winner.

Palma’s Treble 

In the last five minutes, Celtic finally managed to convert their chances with Palma the beneficiary as he completed a hat-trick.

McArdle did extremely well to work to to pen up a crossing position, which allowed the younger the chance to float the ball to the back post and let Palma pounce. Then, with two minutes of stoppage time almost up, Isiguzo slid a tantalising ball to the back post and the 24-year-old arrived to make it 3-2 to Celtic.

Brendan started the evening by talking about a game in 1983 that he attended as a youngster where Celtic played Finn Harps. The manager said that he could remember that and he wanted his team to inspire the supporters. The fans will certainly remember this late show from Celtic, especially those that were able to take selfies on the pitch with the Celtic team.