Ross County 0 – 5 Celtic: Easy in the end as Celtic rout the Staggies in the Highlands and Boli Bolingoli leaves.

Celtic got back to domestic action with a 5-0 hammering of Ross County in Dingwall yesterday.

The scoreline paints the picture of an easy afternoon but in fact in the first half it was anything but.

Reverting to the 3-5-2 formation which was so successful in the second half of last season new signing Shane Duffy started as part of a back three with Jullien and Ajer whilst Ntcham replaced Chrisite in the middle and Ajeti starting upfront with Edouard. 
We got off to a great start with Edouard marking his return to first-team action from injury with a penalty on 4 mins after he was needlessly pulled down by County defender Jordan Tilson.

Ajeti made it three goals in three games and in only 56 mins of football with a nice instinctual finish on the 20-minute mark after a County failed to clear a McGregor freekick into the box.

But both between and after all that goalkeeper Vasilios Barkas made a couple of great saves as he touched an Iain Vigurs free-kick onto the bar and also kept out an excellent Ross Stewart header that looked goal bound. 

He was also called into action early in the second half a few times too but was up to the challenge and really showed the form that underlines why we parted with £5 million for him.   

The hosts also hit the post via a speculative free-kick from distance and can count themselves unlucky not to have netted at least once. 

Fourteen minutes into the second half we wrapped up the points when debutant Shane Duffy wiped out his teammate Christopher Jullien and powered home a header to make it three. Big Jullien was so flummoxed by it all he was actually screaming for a penalty not realising it was his own teammate who’d done him and that we’d actually scored. 

After that, the floodgates opened as Ntcham set-up Kris Ajer for a tap-in and substitute Patryk Klimala made it 5-0 only minutes after missing what looked like a certainty which was cleared off the line. 

The relief from the Polish striker as he celebrated was tangible. 
Added to that new signing David Turnbull made his debut on the 77 mins so all things considered it was a bit of a perfect day. 

Truth be told the scoreline really didn’t reflect the game with Celtic only taking over in the last half an hour and for the first hour County looked dangerous on the break. 
Our new back three looked a little off especially in the first period but that’s understandable as they’ve never actually played together before. 

But you can’t complain with a 5-0 win and now we’re back to the two up front that saw us score 34 goals in our last ten league games of the 2019/20 campaign I think we can all be excited about the possibilities

Next-up we’re at St.Mirren on Wednesday night for the rescheduled game and they are toiling at the moment having been hammered 3-0 at home yesterday by Hibernian and having to resort to bringing in calamitous Hearts goalkeeper Zdenek Zlamal due to a Covid-19 outbreak amongst their own keepers.   

The man responsible for the game being rescheduled in the first place Boli Bolingoli has finally departed on a season-long loan to Turkish Champions Istanbul Basaksehir.
They have an option to buy and right now every Celtic fan is hoping they take it.

Let’s be honest there was no real way back for Boli after his misdemeanour and it was highly unlikely we’d ever see him in the Hoops again.

It now makes singing a left-back of vital importance between now and the end of the window but with three weeks left before it closes, that should be feasible.

Greg Taylor isn’t every Celtic fan’s cup of tea, to say the least, and with the 3-5-2 in place, it’ll be tough for an out and out left-back to get a starting position though I didn’t think James Forrest was really effective out the left yesterday and is far more suited to the right-hand side berth. 

Definitely food for thought.