Youth coach John Kennedy was pleased to see the goals fly in yesterday against Dundee United in a 5-0 win.
With the excitement and attention of the Barcelona match fading into the background Celtic’s u-19 side were back on SPL duty looking to keep up with pace setters Hearts who have started the season with four straight wins.
Celtic wasted little time in claiming the points with a pleasing variety of goals coming from four different players as well as an own goal from the visitors.
Rhys Murrell-Williamson opened the scoring in the 14th minute with an eye catching 25 yarder into the top corner of the net which pleased Kennedy almost as much as the scorer.
The Celtic coach said: “Rhys has did well on and off this season but has lacked a wee bit of consistency.
“You can see when he’s on his game he has great ability. He just needs to have a bit more belief in himself during games. He’s a good character, a good boy and hopefully we can keep him improving.
“It’s good to have someone with his raw ability to work with but you also need to have the right mentality. Rhys works hard and like the rest of the team we want to see him take his level of performance from training into matches.”
Celtic’s defence was barely tested but the understanding between Marcus Fraser and Curtis Jones grows on a game by game basis.
Left-back Joe Chalmers was unlucky to see a stinging 30 yard shot come off the post while Mikey Miller on the other flank provided some solid link up play.
Across the middle of the park it’s hard to pin down exactly what system Celtic are using with Kennedy encouraging the players to think for themselves in the right areas of the park.
The Celtic coach explained: “We can’t be too robotic with them and ask them to stick to one area of the pitch. We want to be fluid to cause teams problems and encourage them to express themselves in the right areas of the pitch.
“We encourage them to move the ball around quickly because that’s what the best teams do. There were a lot of good performances, I thought that in the first half Filip (Twardzik) was outstanding, his ball retention was excellent along with others.
“Paul George is getting into good areas and using the ball quicker rather than hanging onto it. When they play that way there’s not many teams that will be able to contain them.”
Bringing through new players from the club academy is the lifeblood of the club with Adam Brown making the most of his 12 minutes on the park with only an excellent save keeping him off the scoresheet.
Kennedy added: “Adam has shown a great attitude in the u-17 matches and has done more than enough to deserve a chance. He was in the squad last week at Aberdeen, you never hear a peep out of him in training, we like to encourage all the younger players that they’ll get their chance.
CELTIC Thomson; Miller, Fraser, Jones, Chalmers; Fisher, F Twardzik, Irvine, Williamson; Watt, George
SUBS Daniels, Gormley (Williamson 62), Atajic (Fisher 53), Brown (George 78), O’Brien, Yaqub
THIS SEASON’S SPL SCORERS: Watt 4, F Twardzik 2, George 1, Atajic 1, Herron 1, Williamson 1, Gormley 1, OG 1
CLICK HERE for Sion go to war with UEFA and FIFA
CLICK HERE for youth team match report against Dundee United
Follow Video Celts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
