Christie hits hat-trick in Celtic 7-goal romp

GLASGOW: Ryan Christie scored a hat-trick as champions Celtic showed no mercy to a hapless St Johnstone thrashing them 7-0 in their opening Scottish Premiership match of the season on Saturday.

Christie’s treble — including two excellent long range efforts — and goals from Mikey Johnston, Olivier Ntcham, Odsonne Edouard and Leigh Griffiths was the perfect message to send to their likely two main title rivals Rangers and Aberdeen, who get their campaigns underway on Sunday.

For St Johnstone it continued their tale of woe against Celtic. They have failed to score in their last eight meetings and last beat them in May 2016. The champions took less than 10 minutes to open their account, 20-year-old Johnston scoring with a beautiful individual goal. Christie then grabbed a quickfire double — his first a stunning long range effort but his second on the half hour mark was down to a goalkeeping howler by Zander Clarke. Christie sealed his hat-trick in the second-half, this time rattling in another long range effort after being teed up by Johnston. Edouard was integral to the next two goals, the French striker setting up compatriot Ntcham, who scored with his first touch of the ball to net the fifth, and then he got on the scoresheet 10 minutes from time. Griffiths, who had created Edouard’s goal, made it 7-0 four minutes from time to extend Celtic’s seventh successive victory since they lost to bitter rivals Rangers in May.