Henrik Larsson was involved in a good few hammerings of Aberdeen but despite his various records the King of Kings was never involved in a 9-0 scoreline.
The Dons were one of Larsson’s favourite victims during his seven glorious years at Celtic but as he watched from the stand today alongside Chris Sutton he couldn’t have failed to have been impressed by two of the young pretenders to his crown.
It was a record scoreline for an SPL match and the first time that Celtic have struck nine in the league since September 1971 when Clyde at least managed a consolation goal.
Gary Hooper and Anthony Stokes each scored a hat-trick and showed the type of predatory instincts that only Scott McDonald has hinted at since Larsson moved off to Spain to help Barcelona to win the Champions League.
Hooper scored three goals during his 68 minutes on the park and showed all the instinctive skills of a striker that goes out onto the park expecting to score.
With nine goals from eight appearances the former Scunthorpe striker has hit the ground scoring with a conversion rate that even Larsson would be proud of.
Despite his many goals and record breaking achievements Larsson was first and foremost a team player.
Whether it was alongside Harald Brattbakk, Mark Viduka, Chris Sutton or John Hartson the Swede was entirely selfless and on more than one occasion with Brattbakk would pass up the chance to score in favour of giving his team-mate a share of the glory.
It’s early days for Hooper and Stokes at Celtic- and they’ll face far harder tests than the Aberdeen defence- but there were plenty of encouraging signs between the pair to suggest that they could plunder a Larsson-like share of goals this season.
Of all the goals today Celtic’s sixth- Hooper’s third- was the most pleasing. Taking a short free-kick from Ki in the 62nd minute Stokes instinctively knew exactly where Hooper would be looking for the ball.
Stokes inviting cross was met powerfully by Hooper who headed the ball down and goalwards across the despairing Jamie Langfield to bag the first of hopefully a few Celtic hat-tricks.
Before the match Neil Lennon had talked about how there was more to come from his team as they found their feet and adjusted to a league which only Shaun Maloney of today’s starters has any real experience of.
Three weeks ago at Dundee United Celtic had turned in a similar type of performance but with Dougie Dougie turning a blind eye to hand-balls and kamikaze goal-keeping the winning margin that day was a single goal.
Hearts away on Wednesday night will be a completely different challenge that will require some changes to the team and it’s unlikely that Lennon will put out a team with six attack minded players.
Mark Wilson’s know how may be required at right-back with Jos Hooiveld and Glenn Loovens competing to replace the suspended Thomas Rogne.
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Keeping Stokes and Hooper supplied with as much of the ball as possible in and around the penalty box was the key lesson from today.
Lennon described Stokes as a menace when the striker from Hibs but the new bhoy is showing that it’s not just in the penalty box that he’s effective.
Whether Stokes and Hooper will be making the windfall draw in front of dewy eyed supporters in ten years time remains to be seen but on today’s evidence Lennon’s new look strike force look like plundering goals just like you know who did in the recent past.
Neil Lennon- there are a lot of questions to be answered
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It is ironic that this is what can happen when you get the decisions that you are supposed to be getting. These were three blatant penalties and while before the fracas these past few weeks we certainly would not have had, the ref was actually fair and did what he had to and awarded the kicks. Henke would have been a proud man.