First half goals from Dylan McGeough and Marcus Fraser earned Celtic a 2-1 win over Manchester City in the Next Gen Series.
The win keeps alive Celtic’s hopes of qualifying for the knock out stage in the New Year with their next fixture a trip to Barcelona on November 24.
Celtic picked up where they left off after beating City 4-2 in Manchester with the five man midfield of John Herron, Callum McGregor, Jackson Irvine, McGeough and Paul George dominating the match.
While George was the star of the show in Manchester in was McGeough who caught the eye tonight.
Twenty four hours after making a brief first team debut the midfielder took the opportunity to show the watching Neil Lennon exactly what he is capable of.
Despite starting just his fourth Celtic match McGeough took control of the match with a mature performance that will surely see him emerge as a genuine first team contender in the near future.
Without quite hitting the same heights that they had shown against the same opponents last month it was an impressive display throughout from John Kennedy’s side
Tony Watt could have put Celtic in front as early as the third minute but he was off balance and headed over from Joe Chalmers cross from the left.
Celtic were quickly into their stride with some great passages of play from the midfielders causing the visitors allsorts of bother.
In the 25th minute a first time shot from Jackson Irvine forced Tom Halsall into a good save but the City keeper was unable to prevent McGeough from putting Celtic deservedly in front after 33 minutes.
Picking the ball up 35 yards from goal the midfielder drove at the City defence before releasing a low left foot shot across Halsall into the net.
The goal was was well deserved with Fraser doubling Celtic’s lead four minutes from the interval. The defender took one touch from a McGeough corner taking the ball away from goal before sending a snap shot low into the goal.
City took a more robust approach after the interval with George coming in for some tasty tackles of the Keith Lasley and Steve Jennings variety.
Midway through the second half City pulled a goal back out of the blue when Albert Rusnak sent a dipping 25 yard shot over Robbie Thomson into the net.
A minute later Irvine almost restored Celtic’s two goal advantage but his glancing header from McGeough’s free kick on the left slipped the wrong side of the post.
CELTIC: Thomson, Miller, Fraser, Findlay, Chalmers; Herron (Fisher 89), McGregor, Irvine, McGeough, George; Watt
SUBS: Feely, O’Brien, Bogle, P Twardzik, Atajic, Williamson.
GOALS: McGeough 33, Fraser 41
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I think he must be injured or on international duty with the Czech under 21’s. I can’t see him being left out of the squad otherwise.
Is Filip Twardzik injured? I thought he was highly thought off.
McGeouch was very good on the ball. it would be good to see him get the last 15 mins of league games if we are already 2 goals up to allow him to become accustomed to senior football.
a few of our other boys showed nice touches. i was actually impressed by irvine-he made a few quite simple, but intelligent passes to retain the ball for us when it could have easily have been lost.
good performance. one thing i’d like to see a wee bit more of is to play the most simple pass. the best teams/players will go for the easiest most simple pass 95% of the time. quite often we lost posession when easier balls were on, but overall we played well. congratulations to the boys and the staff.
The young un’s should be well proud of that result well done everyone.