Neil Lennon hailed Celtic’s play as breathtaking in their 3-0 win against St Johnstone as his side continued their impressive start to 2020.

Celtic dismantled St Johnstone with a dominant first half performance that put the champions comfortably out of reach of their opponents.

The home side were floored by Celtic’s high tempo attacking football from the off and found themselves trailing after just five minutes when Olivier Ntcham concluded a sensational passage of play with a header.

Neil Lennon was full of praise for his side’s performance and said Ntcham’s goal underlined his excellent contribution throughout the game.

“I was a happy man overall but the first half was outstanding,” he said. “The fluidity and the overall quality of the play was breath taking at times.

“If we played any team tonight it would have taken a good team to stop us. I thought the first goal was outstanding. Olivier was outstanding tonight. He’s got better and better as the season’s gone on.”

James Forrest doubled the lead with a great strike and Leigh Griffiths’ side footed volley from Greg Taylor’s cross put the Hoops three ahead.

The Celtic manager said he believed Forrest was back to his peak form and added Taylor gave his most impressive display since arriving at Paradise.

“Forrest was brilliant,” said the manager. “He’s back to his very best, he scored a goal and his all round game was superb.

“I thought Taylor was outstanding too, the best he’s played since he’s been here. We were working on it a little bit yesterday and he put three or four good crosses in which I hadn’t seen from him before so I was very impressed with how he did tonight.”

Celtic’s momentum dwindled slightly in the second half as Neil Lennon reshuffled his side with Jozo Simunovic coming off. The manager spoke highly of Simunovic’s commitment to helping the team under difficult circumstances.

“You always want more goals but we had to change the shape with Jozo coming off,” he said. “He’s went above and beyond the call of duty since coming back and has been playing through the pain barrier. I’m so happy with Jozo an how he’s done since coming back.

“He should be fine. We’ll manage him week by week. We have some injuries so under the circumstances we had to call him in which wasn’t ideal. He was in a bit of pain, there’s no damage but we’ll give him rest.”

Neil Lennon hails breathtaking Celts in St Johnstone win