‘Excellent’: Steve Robinson pays tribute to Celtic; compares to Rangers result

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Steve Robinson has paid tribute to an ‘excellent’ Celtic side after Mohamed Elyounoussi scored a brilliant hat-trick in a 4-1 Scottish Premiership win at Fir Park, while speaking to the Daily Record.

How the Hoops needed that.

After a humiliating 4-1 home defeat to Sparta Prague that has left their terminal Europa League hopes on life support, Neil Lennon’s struggling Celtic responded with a much-needed win at Motherwell; just their second in seven games.

Southampton loanee Elyounoussi turned on the style, netting a clinical treble complete with a Cristiano Ronaldo-style, gravity-defying header, before Olivier Ntcham put the icing on the cake with a late strike.

Celtic were not quite at their flowing best – with Robinson insisting that Motherwell had their chances and ‘dominated’ large spells on Sunday – but this was a fine response from a side with one hell of a point to prove.

“An excellent team. They have excellent footballers and took their chances when they got them,” Robinson said at full-time.

“I don’t read the criticism [of Celtic]. I just thought we were facing a very good Celtic side and, for large periods, we controlled the game.

“They took their chances and we didn’t. At 2-1, we were in control of the game and their second and third goals were individual errors. They didn’t have to work for them.

“If you do that against a team of that calibre, you’ll get punished. And we did.”

The more ‘demanding’ members of the Celtic fanbase may argue that this was merely an exercise in papering over the cracks.

Just like in last week’s Scottish Cup semi-final victory over Aberdeen, the game was far less comfortable than the score-line suggests. If Motherwell had been a little more careful in the final third – like the Dons seven days earlier – then it could have panned out very differently at Fir Park.

As Robinson adds, a Motherwell team swept aside in a 5-1 defeat to Rangers in September found life a lot easier against Celtic.

“It was night and day (from the Rangers loss). We scored here and then lost one three minutes when we were starting to dominate possession and maybe get more chances.”