Celtic lined out today to keep their hopes alive of a treble or maybe even a quadruple if your the optimistic type. After the heroics of the last week focus was needed to be at 100% if Celtic were to keep their ambitions alive in all competitions.
Ronny named a pretty much unchanged cup team from last week with the exception of Anthony Stokes taking to the bench to be replaced by James Forrest.
Celtic have not conceded a goal since December but everyone expected some sort of battle today from Paul Hartley’s Dundee side. There was no way it was going to be an easy ride like last Sunday. The opening 5 minutes proved as much until a Lustig cross was met by a perfect glancing header from the in-form Leigh Griffiths to put Celtic one up.
By the half hour mark Celtic could of been 3 up with shots from Forrest and Griffiths forcing two good saves from Bain. Johansen also got himself one on one with the shot stopper but again Bain came out on top. Just before half-time Craig Gordon made his first save in 135 minutes of football.
An obvious change for Celtic looked like Forrest for Stokes as Forrest found it hard in the first 45 minutes playing out on the right but it was Kris Commons who never came back out of the tunnel after half time after a knock he picked up in the first half.
Celtic gained a comfortable two goal cushion in the first half after Bain pulled off another fine save from Leigh Griffiths but luckily for Celtic the save fell to the feet of Johansen for him to slot the ball home.
Bad news for Celtic in the 50th minute as Lustig limped off to be replaced by Adam Matthews. Worryingly this only left Celtic with one more substitute to make and Griffiths and Johansen both picked up knocks but managed to overcome them.
With just over a quarter of an hour left John Guidetti came into the fold and replaced James Forrest. Celtic played out the rest of the game on easy street with some nice passages of play although they never materialised into chances at goal.
Celts Are Here Man of the Match: Leigh Griffiths
Gordon; Lustig, Denayer, van Dijk, Izaguirre; Bitton, Brown; Commons, Johansen, Forrest; Griffiths.
Celtic subs: Zaluska, Ambrose, Matthews, Henderson, Stokes, Guidetti, McGregor.
