NEIL Lennon summed up Celtic’s quarter-final League Cup win against Partick Thistle as ‘excellent’ and praised the players who came into the starting XI for their impressive performance.

Celtic set up a semi-final clash against Hibernian with an entertaining evening of attacking football that ended with a 5-0 win for the cup holders. Neil Lennon made eight changes to the starting line-up from the weekend’s 3-1 win against Kilmarnock and the Celtic manager was delighted with the performance from his team.

“I’m delighted,” said the Irishman. “I said to the players afterwards that I was so happy with the performance. We were able to rest a few and those who came in excelled.

“On paper, these games are easy but we know they’re not. We asked them to find a little bit more in the second half and they certainly did that. There were some exceptionally good individual performances. It’s an excellent win and the most important thing is we’re into the semi-final.

“You could see what it meant to some of them to come in and play tonight. The likes of Tom Rogic got his first 90 minutes in a long time and you could see the work he’s done behind the scenes. He got stronger as the game went on and he looked like he was really enjoying him.

“Olivier Ntcham looked good and is playing with a lot of confidence. It’s a seamless transition for me to make changes and for the players to come in with the way John, Damien and the fitness staff train them during the week.”

Amongst the changes was 18-year-old Jeremie Frimpong, who marked his Celtic debut with a Man of the Match performance.

“I thought he was very good, very infectious,” said Neil Lennon of the debut Bhoy. “What you saw tonight is what we’re seeing in training. He took the opportunity to play tonight off the back of Moritz being out. I thought he was excellent. He can be delighted with his night’s work and it’s a good start.

“Frimpong is battling for a first-team place. As soon as we brought him in, he’s excelled. For a guy with a small stature he has lot of personality, energy and strength. We feel he could be a really good player here.”

Manager: I'm delighted with the team's performance