Celtic breeze past Kaunas

Kaunas 0 Celtic 4

It took Henrik Larsson just 13 minutes of the new campaign to make more goalscoring history in Lithuania tonight.

His 30th European goal for Celtic put the UEFA Cup finalists on course for the final qualifying round of the Champions League.

The former Swedish international equalled the British record in Europe of 30, for a single club, held by former Liverpool striker Ian Rush and Leeds legend Peter Lorimer.

Chris Sutton and Shaun Maloney also opened their season accounts early, and Liam Miller also netted to virtually assure Celtic of a final qualifier against the winners of the MTK Hungaria v HJK Helsinki tie.

The Glasgow giants will now be expected to reach the money-spinning group stages after avoiding disaster in this potentially tricky hurdle.

Martin O’Neill was anxious about coming to Lithuania so early especially with their unknown opponents vowing to pull off a shock victory for former striker Audrius Slekys, who was killed in a car crash on Sunday night.

But he need not have worried as his players showed great attitude to comfortably sweep their opponents aside in the the St Dariaus and Giremo Stadium.

Goalkeeper Robert Douglas, whose position as Celtic’s number one was the subject of much debate prior to kick-off, hardly had a save to make.

He started the new season as first-choice as O’Neill went with almost the same UEFA Cup final side with the only change being Stanislav Varga in for the suspended Bobo Balde.

The selection of the Scotland goalkeeper came as a shock having been axed after his mistakes cost the Glasgow giants European glory in Seville less than three months ago.

Swedish international Magnus Hedman had looked to have emerged from a miserable season with injuries to take pole position, but he had to make do with a place on the bench.

After a 10-second silence the visitors, in their new black away shirts, almost made a dream start after just four minutes.

Didier Agathe clipped the ball through to Neil Lennon and his shot past goalkeeper Gytis Padimanskas looked destined for the back of the net, but Irmantas Zelmikas was quick to spot the danger and got back to put the ball behind for a corner.

But the Kaunas number one did much better five minutes later to deny Celtic a deserved lead.

Sutton and Larsson combined on the edge of the box, after Alan Thompson’s long ball, but Padimanskas threw himself to his left to parry the Englishman’s volley.

But it did not take long for the former Feyenoord man to make more history by equalling Lorimer and Rush’s British record of 30 goals in European competition for one club.

The home defence made a hash of Thompson’s corner and Larsson showed he was as razor-sharp as ever, despite the season only just starting, to sweep the ball home.

Sutton then doubled the Scottish side’s lead in the 29th minute after he capitalised on another terrible blunder by Padimanskas to stroke the ball home from close range.

Celtic seemed to take their foot off the gas after the half-time introduction of Shaun Maloney for Lennon – but the visitors extended their lead further with a fluent passing move which was started by Thompson’s ball out wide to Larsson.

The Swede in-turn steered the ball inside to Maloney, but despite having a lot to do Maloney comfortably raced beyond the Kaunas defence before casually guiding the ball past the hand of Padimanskas and into the bottom corner from six yards.

Kaunas’ frustration at their lack of any chances boiled over in the 68th minute when Gedgaudas was booked for hacking at Thompson, who was also cautioned for his reaction.

Larsson was within inches of beating the record with a right-foot shot which whistled past the upright from the edge of the box in the 70th minute.

O’Neill clearly felt the tie was in the bag as he brought on Miller and Jamie Smith for Sutton and Thompson.

Giedrius Barevicius tried to give the home side some hope with a rare shot on goal in the 75th minute, but Douglas was alert to make a comfortable save.

Celtic could afford to take Larsson off for the last 12 minutes and go down to 10 men – and there was also time for Miller to score his first competitive goal for Celtic after converting Maloney’s cross from close range with five minutes remaining.