JAMES Forrest hailed the ruthlessness of Celtic’s play during Saturday’s dismantling of St Johnstone, and said the 7-0 scoreline was the perfect start to the new season.

An emphatic hat-trick from Ryan Christie, along with goals from Mikey Johnston, Olivier Ntcham, Odsonne Edouard and Leigh Griffiths, capped off a Flag Day to remember at Paradise, as the Hoops set the tone for their bid to make it nine-in-a-row.

Forrest himself provided two assists, and had nothing but praise for what he considered a fantastic team performance.

He said: “For ourselves, Saturday was a great start. It was Flag Day and it was great for the fans. It was a good win, we scored seven goals, we could have scored more, and we kept a clean sheet. It was a great performance all round, and the manager said we’ve really set the bar high moving forward.

“The manager came in towards the end of last season, we’ve had a good pre-season and the European games have went well for us so far. The boys have adjusted to what the manager wants, and it’s our aim to keep on improving.”

Forrest spoke highly of both Johnston and Christie, two players he believes have even more to offer over the course of the new campaign.

Speaking of his own game, the 28-year-old winger said the front-facing nature of the current set-up suits him perfectly as a naturally attacking-minded player.

He added: “Every manager plays differently, but Neil Lennon is ruthless. We were 3-0 up at half-time and he wanted us to go out and win the second half as well. You saw that on Saturday. We’ve got a lot of good attacking players, on the pitch and coming off the bench.

“As an attacker, you want to be contributing to the team whenever you can. When you’re playing here, the biggest things are assists and goals. The gaffer likes attackers and wingers to go out and express themselves, and that’s always good for me.

“Sometimes, when teams sit back and make it hard from us, shooting from distance can help. It adds a different dimension to our games, and Ryan has shown in recent games how and why that works.”

James Forrest: We raised the bar with fantastic Flag Day win