With seven new arrivals joining the club so far this summer, four of those players made an appearance at the Excelsior Stadium.

Alongside the Hoops’ latest additions, several Academy players were also given an opportunity and Alonso was delighted to see the impact those players had.

The only negative note from the game was the injury to Chloe Craig in the first half, however, the Spaniard was hopeful that bringing the defender off was only a precaution.

“Obviously we have a few of our young Academy players in the squad, who are impressing,” he said. “So I’m sure they were absolutely delighted to play in front of nice, friendly crowd.

“Apart from our Scottish signed players, like Colette Cavanagh or Jenny Smith, we had Celya (Barclais) who managed to get some minutes, and also a trialist in goals.

'I thought they did very well also. It’s good for them to get those minutes, as they have just come into the country – it’s nice to get them involved.'

“I think overall, everything was very positive. We will have to see how Chloe Craig is, which is probably the only negative note of the game.

“She seemed fine when she left here, so hopefully we can count on her for the next game.”

Although the Celts are still in the middle of their pre-season preparations, with a trip to Gran Canaria to come next week, the Ghirls enjoyed a successful first competitive match of the new campaign.

Alonso believes it is important to have these competitive tests so early on in the season, as the Hoops gear up for what will be another busy campaign.

He said: “Yeah, it’s very important to have these sorts of competitive tests early on.

“In the last game we drew, obviously we had so many Academy players because so many senior players were unavailable.

“But when you don’t win, you always have that strange feeling. But today, it wasn’t only about the result which is important, but we also kept our first clean sheet of pre-season.

'For us, that is very important. At times we played very good football too, moving the ball quick.'

“That can be difficult, because some of the players need to establish those relationships with their new team-mates.

“It is early days, but I like the rotations and the understanding between them. So it’s a good day, but we are obviously far away from our final product.

“So we need to try keep working hard, in order to polish this style”

Fran Alonso: It was great to give our new signings some competitive game time