Underappreciated Celtic duo remind fans of their worth as Dingwall contribution brings up remarkable statistic

How Celtic benefited from an early red Ross County card to claim three points in Dingwall

James Forrest sends a diving header into the net for his 102nd Celtic goal. (Photo by Rob Casey / SNS Group)

There was one moment during, what was in the end, an entirely comfortable 3-0 victory for Celtic in Dingwall that they would thank the Gods for if replicated in the Metropolitano Stadium on Tuesday.

Brendan Rodgers indulged in a spot of football coaching bingo by suggesting that his team’s assignment in the Highlands was made more awkward through Ross County being reduced to 10 men in little over 10 minutes, and so being forced into full defensive mode. A mess of a mis-timed tackle by James Brown on Yang Hyun-jun, leading VAR to alert referee David Munro to the defender’s studs digging into shin in the unprettiest fashion. Yet, the fact is that Rodgers would relish being presented with such a man advantage for almost the entire contest when sharing the pitch with Atletico Madrid in the Spanish capital.

The perilous predicament that this placed Malky Mackay’s men in at their Global Energy Arena was never going to be one from which they could expect to emerge unscathed. It was fair enough for Mackay to draw some succour from their ability to limit the damage ultimately inflicted as they, inevitably, could not. The County manager was more than a little uncharitable in marginalising the role played by his keeper Ross Laidlaw in that. Of the 39 goal attempts that Celtic fashioned, at least six were prevented from finding the net through brilliance from Laidlaw. And the three times that he was beaten were the product of brilliance by those in Celtic colours. In giving starts to Oh Hyeon-gyu, Paulo Bernardo, David Turnbull, Anthony Ralston and Yang, Atletico were figuring in Rodgers’ thoughts with his team selection. And, in the main, there was no lack of drive or deftness as Celtic probed and played keep-ball as such as Kyogo Furuhashi, Matt O’Riley, Luis Palma and Alistair Johnston watched on from the bench. Even if Palma’s goal-plus assist impact after his 62nd minute introduction turned out to be invaluable to his team.

David Turnbull fires Celtic into the lead in Dingwall. (Photo by Paul Devlin / SNS Group)

The surprise element lacking in Celtic’s dominance for 51 minutes was a goal from the visitors. Bizarrely, a carbon-copy of when they opened the scoring on their very previous visit to Dingwall, which came in April. On this occasion, County perhaps benefitted from benevolent officiating over that. It was suprising that Liam Scales firing in after only seven minutes did not lead the VAR operatives to ask referee Munro to have a second look at contact Oh made with Jordan White as they jumped to meet a corner in the lead up to Scales striking. A tussle he had deemed a foul committed on the home player.

The incident was rendered academic when right at the conclusion of first-half added time - or six seconds beyond that point, Mackay noted bitterly in his post-match - Turnbull did what Turnbull does for all-too-little appreciation from his own support: land the ball in the goal from outside the box with shots that seem magnetically pulled towards their target in the truest fashion. Drifting across the front of the box, there was almost a sixth sense about him expertly drilling the ball into a space between Laidlaw and his right-hand post that didn’t seem to exist before he created it.

There appeared an anything-you-can-do element to Palma’s 78th minute second goal. As clean an arcing, and artful, hit as the winger has probably mustered in his career, the ball seemed on a string as it travelled into the top corner from 28 yards. For his next trick, five minutes later, the Honduran danced along the left before delivering a cross that allowed James Forrest to complete that rarest of feats across his 15-year senior career - score with a diving header. Palma’s end-product - he now has four goals and two assists in his short time in Scotland - and his pristine potency is not lost on Rodgers. “He has big quality,” the Celtic manager said. “It was a brilliant strike for the goal. He has that technical quality and confidence to shoot and you see his quality for James’ goal. In that position you pull it back or stand it up. It was a great dink and Jamesy has got the header of his career.”

This final goal made the afternoon remarkable in ways that, in all truth, it was largely not. A fact attributable to it allowing the redoubtable Celtic winger - as with Turnbull, too readily turned on by the club’s support - to bring up 15 consecutive seasons in which he has bagged a goal in the Scottish top-flight. More than that, it brought him only the fourth header of the 102 goals he has netted in that decade-and-a-half. Times change at Celtic but in Forrest they have an endearing constant. Even if his own fans are too often desperate to place his contributions in the past tense.