Last night, watching that superlative 60 minutes in which we were the only team on the park, there were three things that stood out and one thing that eclipsed them entirely.
First was something unexpected but which the World Cup should have prepared us for; there’s something to Christian Gamboa that’s worth keeping him around. He was dynamic, he was aggressive, his pace is an asset on the right that compliments Kieran’s on the left.
The second thing was that our wingers are going to have an excellent season; both Forrest and Sinclair showed us that they are in the mood.
The third was the performance of Olivier Ntcham.
When I wrote my article on our French Connection a few weeks ago, it was Olivier I singled out as perhaps the most impressive of the three.
He had a great first season, I thought, and is only going to get better. As I wrote some months ago, the sale of Ntcham to Celtic was the catalyst for a major shift in how Manchester City evaluates its young players … Guardiola himself felt that allowing him to leave before he was properly looked at was a huge error.
Phil spoke to someone at the time who knows the game inside out who told him “you have your first £30 million player.” Looking at him grow into the Celtic shirt, you can see how that impression could be formed. Olivier Ntcham has everything. The £4.5 million fee was a bargain, and coupled with what we paid for Odsonne Edouard it proves that if you splash out on the right quality you most definitely get what you pay for.
The best technical footballers in Scotland are playing at Celtic Park at the moment, and of that there is not the merest shadow of a doubt. Olivier is definitely up there, amongst the very best. It was a joy to watch him last night, he took his goal superbly and had another shot that cannoned off the crossbar. It was a sublime, dynamic, display.
But of course the performance which eclipsed them all was that of French Eddy who was simply unplayable at times. His first goal was a predatory finish inside the box, but his second was a piece of sheer class right out of the King of King’s playbook. Celtic, take the number 22 off the kid’s back and give him the number he truly deserves.
We have our new Larsson.
Edouard looks every inch the natural born finisher. He moves quickly with the ball. He can hold it up and create chances for other people. His confidence level is sky-high. He will score barrow-loads of goals for us in the coming years; I think he may prove even more potent than Moussa did in his first campaign. The thought of the two of them together up front, with Olivier pulling the strings in the middle of the park … it will be awesome to see.
This team is really starting to motor, and what’s most frustrating about our current lack of transfer activity is imagining how good we could really be, with a couple of new signings on board. Nevertheless, even without them this Celtic teams looks markedly different to the one that slogged its way through the last campaign.
Get ready for a mind-blowing season.
Other clubs won’t know what hit them.