Ronny Deila expects Ryan Christie to be at Celtic for years to come.
The former Inverness Caley Thistle midfielder made a surprise debut as Celtic beat St Johnstone 3-1 to restore a six point advantage over Aberdeen at the top of the Premiership table.
Christie appeared as an 88th minute substitute, replacing Stuart Armstrong as Celtic saw the game out.
With three trophies to aim for the delayed arrival of the Scotland u-21 midfielder will give Celtic a big boost with Deila pleased to have Christie available for a crucial part of the season.
“Ryan’s trained with us for three or four weeks now so it was good to give him his debut,” the Celtic boss said. “He’s a talented boy and he’s going to be here for many years.”
Celtic got an early boost when Gary Mackay-Steven opened the scoring in the ninth minute but St Johnstone were back on level terms three minutes later through Stevie McLean.
Just before half time Stuart Armstrong put Celtic in front with Mackay-Steven putting the hoops further in front ten minutes into the second half.
Leigh Griffiths failed to score for the first time in 2016 but Deila won’t be losing sleep over that statistic.
The Celtic boss said: “Leigh had his chances today as well and he could have scored, but it’s very important that other players are also scoring goals.”
While Celtic were opening up a gap over Aberdeen loan bhoys Liam Henderson and Anthony Stokes scored for Hibs in their 3-1 win over St Mirren, cutting the gap with Sevco down to two points.
Delighted? He only got five minutes …
Btw, whenever we played direct, positive things happened. Whenever we passed the ball sideway or backards — looking at *you* Bitton — negative things happened. Heed that lesson …
Great performance today… A few worrying moments at the back that we could have been punished by a better team but overall the bhoys looked great.
Kingsnake did you even watch the game today? Bitton had a very good game not only that but he was at the heart of a lot of the great play going forward. I count at least 3 marouding runs through the middle of the pitch which led to great team play or goal scoring chances. he kept it simple and ball moving when they pressed us high up the pitch…. Sometimes sideways or backwards is required.He also pressed their players on the ball and won us it back numerous times when they had players up the pitch starting great counter attacking play from us.
I find your comment clueless and not representative of the game I watched today. Johansen also looked much better, not back to his best but definitely signs of improvement
Watched the whole game. But if resorting to flaming makes you feel better …
Well after today that man called referee ha ha hope he like his 7 mates enjoy there training in Malaga this week, and read up on FIFA/UEFA rules of the game, and not the SPFL/SFA manual
Another win and another 3 points, and the Celts go marching on.
HH
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Does anyone have an update on the Living Wage issue?
On checking the Living Wage Foundation site neither Celtic or Rangers appear to be registered.
In Celtic ‘ s case I think this is because only the full time staff are on the living wage rate but not the match day temps.
King, at the Rangers AGM, several months ago now, pledged to implement the living wage scheme immediately and had given instructions to Robertson, the CEO, to make it happen.
This at the time was hailed as a coup for Rangers and the press were quick to run with the story…….good Rangers, bad, bad, bad Celtic.
Apologies if I’ve missed something on the Living Wage Foundation site………anyone got an update on this?