It was a day for Celtic’s two Israeli internationalists to celebrate as the Hoops beat St Johnstone 3-1 at McDiarmid Park.

Nir Bitton captained the side in the absence of Callum McGregor, and netted Celtic’s third goal of the game, while Liel Abada scored twice in a convincing win for Ange Postecoglou’s side.

St Johnstone rallied briefly in the second half when Chris Kane reduced the deficit with a headed goal, but in a game that Celtic dominated, Bitton’s late strike ensured all three points for the Hoops.

Speaking after the game, Bitton said: “We knew before the game it didn’t matter what team we put out – we are the better team and had to control the game and show it on the pitch.

'We have a strong squad and it doesn’t matter who plays. We should dominate and control the matches.'

“We made it difficult for ourselves. It was a comfortable game for us and we controlled it from the first minute. I’m glad we won.

“We made one mistake and we paid for that, but we need to learn for the future and we need to be more ruthless and finish games off earlier. But, at the end of the day, the most important thing is we won.”

Liel Abada opened the scoring for Celtic after just nine minutes, adding a second on 22 minutes, and the 20-year-old had a number of chances throughout the game to try and grab his first hat-trick as a Celtic player.

The third goal for Ange Postecoglou’s side, when it came in the 82nd minute, was superbly finished by Nir Bitton, though the stand-in skipper wasn’t getting carried away by any praise for his strike.

“My goal was lucky,” he said. “I was inside the box, controlled the ball and just tried to hit the target. I’m glad I did it.

"I try to do my best every game. I don’t put a lot of attention to being captain, apart from it being a privilege to captain this club.

"These boys had an amazing game. We controlled the match from the first minute, and that’s important."

Nir Bitton: We were always in control at McDiarmid Park