MOUSSA DEMBELE came out of cold storage and was in scorching form in the Austrian sunshine as he scored to give Celtic a hard-fought 1-0 win over Sparta Prague.

The Frenchman could have had a first-half hat-trick as he exhibited his raw pace and power in his first run-out of the summer, having sat out the first three friendlies of the trip.

The 21-year-old first outmuscled a defender to run in on goal and finish emphatically from a tight angle, before he ran through twice more towards the end of the half in quick succession, only to dink one effort wide and then be denied by goalkeeper Florian Nita.

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He was taken off at the interval, but Celtic saw the game out in what was a testing run-out in temperatures approaching 30 degrees.

Celtic set up in a 3-5-2 formation, allowing Dembele and Odsonne Edouard to form a formidable-looking strike partnership, and perhaps given a flavor of the team that will face Alashkert next week.

The back three in front of Craig Gordon was Jozo Simunovic, Kristoffer Ajer and Jack Hendry, with Kieran Tierney and James Forrest playing at wingback.

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Scott Brown patrolled the midfield with Olivier Ntcham, with Callum McGregor playing in an advanced role behind the strikers.

There was no place in the squad for Leigh Griffiths and Scott Sinclair, who had earlier helped a young Celtic side to a 2-1 win over BW Linz, with a wonderful individual goal from Mikey Johnston and a second from Sinclair wrapping up the victory.