Celtic got back to winning ways with a comprehensive win over Kidsgrove, with two excellent strikes sealing the points.

This looked like the Celtic of last season, movement, pressure and bravery going forward, and it told in the first attack, with Liam Tongue spreading the ball to Ellis Horan to run at his defender, and put a cross in, knowing Jack Irlam would be arriving. Irlam had work to do, with a defender and keeper blocking his initial attempt, before he took the second chance to stab it under the keeper. Tongue then tried his own luck from thirty yards, forcing Lucas Joubert into an excellent save. If Tongue was far out, Lewis Rawsthorn was even further. Forty yards from goal, Joubert out of position, Tongue won it, laid him off and Rawsthorn passed the ball into the net past a scrambling keeper. Tongue went close again, beating Joubert this time, but at the post, Clayton Malbon put his knee on the ball to concede the corner instead. Leading at half time, and looking good for it.

Celtic almost went three up through Aaron Chalmers off a corner, but first the keeper then bodies on the line denied his two attempts at forcing the ball over the line. The visitors went all out offensive, putting Celtic under immense pressure for the rest of the half. Malbon fired over and Nat Morley’s strike requiring a stunning stop from Charlie Monks, before Malbon got beyond the defence to flick a header over Monks, hitting the bar. Jordan Flattely’s last act of the game was to fire into the side netting with the Celtic defence arrayed against him. Storm weathered, Celtic regained their dominance with fifteen minutes to go, Rawsthorn pulling a fantastic stop from Jubert. The corner caused chaos, with Rawsthorn denied close range by the keeper, Obua Mugalula blocked by a sliding body, and Rawsthorn eventually sliding the ball the wrong side of the post.

A goal did come, almost immediately after. And it was a corker. Tongue won the ball, fed the ball to Andy Scarisbrick who’s close control flummoxed the defence and he curled a beauty into the top corner. He could have had another in stoppage time, but Joubert made an instinctive block from two feet away. Seconds left on the clock, four deep into stoppage time, and Kidsgrove did pull back a consolation, when Matt Rhead used his powerful presence to barrel through players and nod a cross out to Rouben Felding arriving from deep, and he swept the ball in, but Celtic had done enough, and the scoreline reflected the game.