Neil Lennon has praised midfielder Ki Sung Yeung for his performance in the 6-0 rout of Inverness Caley Thistle.
During the last international break Ki was reported to be unhappy at his lack of first team opportunities this season.
The midfielder scored a stunning goal in the 4-0 win over St Mirren last month but his celebrations looked decidedly muted.
Lennon left out Biram Kayal from the midfield last night and with Scott Brown suspended the 21-year-old Kayal made the most of his chance.
Forming a forceful partnership with Joe Ledley in the middle of the park Ki showed his full range of passing against the Highland side and was unlucky not to find the net with a first half 25 yard drive that Jonny Tuffney pushed away for a corner.
Lennon said: “The execution of the pass from Ki for Samaras’s second goal was exquisite, his overall game tonight was very good.
“Ki is a very good trainer and he brought all of that to the table tonight. His work rate was very good. He’s a talented player, technically brilliant and we saw that.”
Celtic finished the game with ten men when Gary Hooper hurtled off in the closing stages but there was no recurrence of the calf injury that the striker picked up in pre-season against Blackburn Rovers.
“This was a good opportunity for Gary to get 90 minutes under his belt,” Lennon added. “He got his goal and his general play was excellent.
“We think that he is a good player and that there is far more to come from him.
“There wasn’t a poor performance out there, the attitude and application was good and the quality of the performance was very high as well.”
Emilio Izagurri was substituted after 11 minutes but Lennon is hopeful that the left-back will be fit to face Hibs on Saturday.
“At first we thought it was a tear,” the Celtic boss revealed. “He just got a knee into his thigh, his leg went dead, we’ll see how he is in the morning.
“We’re hoping he’ll be ok for Saturday, it just depends on the extent of the knock.”
Meanwhile over in Switzerland Scotland completed their qualifying group for the u-17 European Championships with a 0-0 draw with Switzerland with both countries already having qualified for the elite stage.
Seven of the squad are from Celtic with Joe Chalmers scoring the only goal in the 1-0 win over Macedonia with fellow Celts John Heron and Marcus Fraser netting in the 2-1 win over Luxemburg.
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