Matthew Lindsay

NEIL Lennon last night described Celtic’s stunning first-half display against Aberdeen at Pittodrie as “red hot” - and revealed he felt it was as good a 45 minutes of football they have produced during his time as Parkhead manager.

Goals from Odsonne Edouard, Jeremie Frimpong, James Forrest and Mohamed Elyounoussi had sewed up victory and another three Ladbrokes Premiership points for the treble treble winners by half-time.

Lennon, whose team beat Lazio in the Europa League on Thursday evening, admitted he had wanted to see more goals in the second-half, but he was effusive in his praise of their all-round performance against Derek McInnes’s out-of-sorts side.

“It was outstanding football,” he said. “The mentality of the team was brilliant today and their fitness levels came shining through. The overriding emotion is one of immense pride in that performances. The players take an enormous amount of pride in that as well.

“I loved the Forrest goal. Mind you, Edouard’s was a bit special as well. It was a special goal from a special player, a moment of individual brilliance. But the third and fourth goals were good as well.

“Even Jeremie’s goal, the way we worked it, the combination play around the box against a team who were difficult to break down was sensational. We were red hot today, absolutely red hot.”

Asked if it was the best half of football he had overseen during his time as Celtic manager, he said: “It’s up there. It was just relentless, the quality of the play. It was fantastic to watch.

“But I’m just grateful for the win to come here after Thursday and play in the way we did speaks volumes for the fitness levels and their mentality at the minute.

“I don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves as there’s a lot of work to do. But they are in a good vein of form at the minute. It was important to get back to winning ways away from home and we’ve done that in emphatic style.”

Celtic had lost away to Livingston after beating Cluj in the Europa League earlier this month and Lennon felt both the performance and resounding victory silenced those who questioned whether they could cope with the demands of European and domestic football.

“They are answering it in spades,” he said. “We had a brilliant week. That’s 10 goals in the league (Celtic beat Ross County 6-0 at home nine days ago) and a fantastic win against Lazio. Mentally and physically it could have been draining for them. They have recovered brilliantly and gone out and played some outstanding team football.”

Lennon singled out Frimpong, the 18-year-old right back who was playing just his third game of senior football, for special praise afterwards.

“We see him as an emerging talent,” he said. “He has probably made that progression a little quicker than we expected. But it is difficult to keep him out of the team at the minute with the way he is playing. He followed up a great performance last week with another tremendous performance today.”

Lennon’s opposite number Derek McInnes, meanwhile, admitted Aberdeen had deserved to lose heavily and apologised to the Pittodrie supporters for how poorly his men, who could have gone third in the league with a win, had acquitted themselves.

“We were awful,” he said. “After losing the first goal we lacked personality and determination. I felt every time the ball went in our box it was a goal to Celtic.

“The first goal is awful, just awful. Edouard ambled through. The lack of determination to stop it happening was poor. We lost confidence from there. I don’t expect to lose like this. I expect us to let Celtic know we are there.

“Celtic eased up in the second-half as the job was done. We can’t take Celtic on in a possession based game, but we can let them know they are in a game. That was a disappointment. I was astonished at the defending and the goals we lost. It was painful.

“I can only apologise to our supporters. They deserve better than that. I think I deserve better than that.”