Brendan shuffled the pack today, but I thought his changes were spot-on before the whilst blew and the result and the performance fully vindicated his decisions.
What a game that was. What a performance. Total dominance. Total control. We had the foot on their throat from the word go, and we deserved everything we got from the game. So did they. The whingeing Fir Park club were never leaving Celtic Park without suffering. It was inevitable. We gave them a hiding today, and they were due it.
There was nothing about that which wasn’t excellent. Individual performances stood out though; James Forrest scored two excellent goals and put in a nearly flawless display. The big guy Ntcham continues to impress me. When he is fully settled in and integrated into this team he will be quite some talent. He has everything.
Johnny Hayes take a bow. Your best performance in a Celtic shirt. Big Ajer strolled.
And then there’s Odsonne Edouard. I’ve heard great things about this kid’s exploits in the PSG youth academy and under 20 ranks of the French national team. He is clearly a talent. Clearly a huge talent. But we hadn’t seen it until today.
Today he exploded into the Scottish game. He scored a hat-trick. He could have had more. This boy was just magnificent. His goals were excellent, the second in particular, but it was everything about his performance … he oozed quality.
We have an option to buy this guy; the fee is already agreed. Before this game I would have said there was virtually no chance of us ever bothering to exercise it, but you know what? Maybe. Just maybe. On a day when we learn that Patrick Roberts might be out of this team for three months the question will naturally arise as to who might impress us more as the rest of this campaign rolls on. Patrick is a wonderful player, but talk about grabbing your opportunity … the 19 year old certainty did that today.
We conceded a silly goal at a silly time, but the outcome of this one was never in doubt. Motherwell have been swaggering through the media for weeks; they were going to match us in the cup, end our unbeaten run in the league … it’s all blah blah blah tonight. We’ve won the League Cup, taken a point at their ground and turned them over at ours.
And yes there was controversy; we should have been 3-0 up at half time, but the ref overturned his linesman’s decision not to raise the flag when Rogic burst through. That requires an inquiry at the very least; I will settle for nothing less than resignations across the board!
All joking aside, the story of the day is how good we were. And we were. We looked like champions, we played like champions … days like today are why we are champions, and deservedly. There is not a team that can touch us on a day like this.