Ryan Christie revealed last night that he was tempted to shoot himself just before teeing up Odsonne Edouard for the winning goal against Leipzig last night.

In a pulsating evening at Celtic Park, Brendan Rodgers’s side saw Kieran Tierney’s early opener cancelled out by Jean-Kevin Augustin before Edouard immediately restored their advantage.

“As soon as I took the touch I could see Odsonne out of the corner of my eye running in but my first thought was ‘just shoot’,” said Christie, who put in arguably his best performance in a Celtic shirt. “And then I thought to myself that maybe I had better not. It goes through your mind in such a flash but I could see he was in the better position and I was delighted to see him tap it in.

“I thought he was tremendous for us. You need players like that when you are under pressure at times and the ball is being hit up to him. He held it up so well and got us a few free-kicks and he just really did a big job for the team so I was really pleased for him when he scored.

“It was definitely the most enjoyable game I’ve ever played in.

“It was just a brilliant night and it opens the Europa League group up for us now.”

And Christie also spoke of sensing the desire to see the game out when Celtic were up against in the final, frantic minutes as Leipzig threw everything at them.

“Ten minutes to go and having to hold on, I could really felt the spirit within the team,” said the 23-year-old. “We were having to hold on but I just felt the confidence of the players round about me on the pitch. We were looking at each other and thinking that we had it in us to dig our heels in and get the result. We did that and I think we deserved it too.

“We knew before the game that we had to win and we have done that. Who knows now what we can do. There are two games to go and we have put ourselves back in the mix.”

Domestic football will take precedence now as Celtic head to Livingston on Sunday afternoon, with Christie keen to head off on international duty having helped the Parkhead side return to the top of the league for the first time this season.

“We are at Livingston now on Sunday afternoon and it would be fabulous to round off the month by looking at the table and seeing ourselves sitting at the top of it,” he said “That is no disrespect at all to Livingston because they have had a brilliant start to the season and have shown a lot of people what they have got but we want to keep this run of form going.

“It will be tough for us because they have been excellent at home. But we will rest up now and recover over the next few days because we know that it is a gruelling schedule. We’ll be ready to go again and everyone will have taken a massive lift from the result and the performance last night.”