Celtic's colourful coda of concern takes centre stage as blunt message sent to key individual

Fresh from the disappointing goalless draw with Kairat Almaty in the play-off first leg, Brendan Rodgers’ much-changed line-up again struggled to convince throughout a disjointed first half against a Livingston side determined to thwart them at every turn.

To the backdrop of further supporter protests against the club’s hierarchy board, it took the arrival of many of those given a rest from the starting line-up – Callum McGregor, Daizen Maeda, James Forrest et al - for Celtic to eventually get properly motoring. Two goals from Benjamin Nygren and a third from Jonny Kenny extended their perfect start to their Premiership defence with a bit to spare.

Celtic, then, achieved their twin aims of winning the match and also giving an outing for some of their fringe figures, while those expected to line up in Kazakhstan on Tuesday night were given most or all of the afternoon off.

There was a first start for Shin Yamada at the apex of the attack – he had a first half “goal” chalked off for offside - and a debut for compatriot Hayato Inamura who put in a series of enticing crosses from the left. Colby Donovan, still just 18 years old, was also giving a maiden outing at right-back late on.

The cavalry, though, will return in Almaty when Celtic will look to book their place in the Champions League group phase. Rodgers will be hoping his attackers perform like they did here in the second half rather than as they did in an uninspired offering before the interval.

A quick mood change at Celtic Park

The fan protests started as early as the 14th minute. The pre-match displays had actually been positive, banners raised commemorating the 20th anniversary of the North Curve, aka the Green Brigade, but in an instant the mood changed, mirroring the scenes of frustration and anger prevalent in midweek at the first leg of the Kairat tie.

Up went a series of hand-written banners: Zero ambition. Neglect team. Rinse fans. A fourth had “world class” scored out, replaced with “basic board” ahead of the first – but not the last – rendition of 'sack the board', with a vitriolic message to chief executive Michael Nicholson tagged onto the end as a colourful coda. How the team performs in Kazakhstan and the depth of the transfer business conducted in what remains of the window will both likely dictate how long these vocal protests go on for.

A strong performance on the field might have assuaged some of the dissenting voices but, for the duration of the first half, Celtic again looked bereft of ideas. Livingston, defensively robust in their unyielding 5-4-1 shape, throttled the life out of the contest and this much-changed Celtic line-up struggled to get through them.

Livingston have never won at Celtic Park but, when Jerome Prior somehow tipped a Hyunjun Yang header onto his crossbar in the final minute of a staccato first period, their small clutch of supporters and manager David Martindale may have been wondering if this might finally be the day.

If they could have opened the second half in similar fashion it might have been a different story but instead it took Celtic just two minutes to break through, setting the tone with Livingston’s resistance belatedly broken. All that was left to decide after that was the margin of Celtic’s victory.

Yang was the creator of the first, cutting in from the left before unleashing a shot from the perimeter of the penalty box that Prior could only push away. This time there was no covering defender on hand to complete the clearance, the ball instead falling for Nygren to nudge over the line.

Livingston spurred out of shape

That forced Livingston to show greater attacking ambition, with Kasper Schmeichel finally called into action to push away a free kick then clutch a Daniel Finlayson header from a corner.

Martindale had warned beforehand that “we’re going to have to suffer as a group” and the pain soon became too much as goals two and three arrived to extinguish any possibility of a comeback. Nygren got the second from a similar position to his first, lashing in a shot via the underside of the crossbar after Arne Engels’ ball across had only been partially repelled.

Celtic’s second-half replacements had infused them with greater dynamism and two of the newcomers combined for the third goal, Maeda centring for Jonny Kenny to volley home.