Lennon admits he's closing in on a defensive double

CELTIC manager Neil Lennon confirmed that the club has moved a step loser to signing defenders Emilio Izaguirre and Swedish international Daniel Majstorovic, saying that they were "nearly over the line" regarding the AEK Athens centre-half, who is available on a free transfer and was at Celtic Park yesterday to undergo his medical.

The Honduran left-back, who is expected to cost just under 600,000, will arrive today. However, the Celtic boss said there was nothing new to report on Craig Bellamy, "only that we are in the mix with plenty of clubs". He did confirm that Darren O'Dea was in talks with Ipswich with regards a loan spell but was happier to focus on the players who he felt had performed brilliantly in the SPL curtainraiser at Inverness. "What we are trying to do is build a team and you saw today that we aren't just one dimensional, we were attacking from different areas, we have pace in the team, a bit of power...but it's still very early days so I'm not getting too excited, but to come here and create the chances that we did, I haven't seen a Celtic team do that in a long time."

Most of them came in the second half after they had weathered the storm whipped up by newly-promoted Inverness.

The Highlanders' coach Terry Butcher said: "It's hard to put your finger on it. As good as we were in the first half we were as equally poor in the second half. Celtic thoroughly deserved their three points and the scoreline could have been a lot worse but at half-time it was fine.

"It was like I had put on ten subs at half-time! But good job I kept the keeper on because Ryan Esson was tremendous."