Celtic rebounded from their humiliation at Tynecastle by defeating Livingston 4-2 Sunday to go to the Scottish Cup semi-finals.
Daizen Maeda put the hosts ahead early, latching onto a beautiful ball from Nicolas Kuhn and neatly volleying past former Hoops goalkeeper Michael McGovern.
Despite all signs pointing to a comfortable day at work for Brendan Rodgers, Livingston answered through Daniel MacKay, who avoided the Bhoys’ backline before bursting past Joe Hart to equal the score.
In what became a common theme, Maeda scored his second goal by bending low to head past McGovern after the Northern Ireland international parried a Matt O’Riley effort.
Nonetheless, David Martindale’s side refused to give up and equalised early in the second half thanks to an amazing finish from Tete Yengi.
Both sides had chances to settle the affair, though Celtic weren’t going to be denied a deserved passage to Hampden, and Maeda was the benefactor of Tomoki Iwata forcing the issue to finish his hat-trick
His compatriot Kyogo Furuhashi put the game beyond doubt in stoppage time, capitalizing on a clever flick from James Forrest to slot home with ease.
There was some concern about the Hoops’ defensive performance; nonetheless, Rodgers’ side did more than enough to earn a place in the Scottish Cup semi-final draw.
Mark Wilson believes Nicolas Kuhn shone for Celtic yesterday
Kuhn’s £3 million transfer from Rapid Vienna in January was met with optimism; however, he has struggled to light up Parkhead, scoring only once in his first seven games [Transfermarkt].
On a side note, the 24-year-old performed well against Livingston, providing directness to the Celtic forward line and the ability to drive at his marker, which Mark Wilson believes Kuhn can draw ‘great confidence’ from moving ahead.
Wilson responded to Gordon Duncan’s question about whether Kuhn’s performance against Livingston could have boosted his Celtic career [Clyde 1 Superscoreboard]: “You would like to think so, players all go on confidence. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been brought in from, whether you’ve been brought in from the youth academy or you’ve been brought in for £4 million.
“You thrive off confidence. There’s no doubt that Kuhn looks like he’s took a wee bit of time to get going. A lot of people have written him off; I wasn’t convinced by him.
“On today’s performance, he looks a player. In those 70 minutes, he looks like a player within that, and he’ll take great confidence from that.
“Wingers and front players especially, maybe rely on it a wee bit more (confidence). Today he had the beating of Montano every time he got the ball. He can be happy with his day’s work, he got a great ovation when he went off, and you’ve got to say, James Forrest when he came on was lively as well.”
Nicolas Kuhn has finally landed at Celtic
Kuhn scored his only goal for Celtic in his debut against Aberdeen in early February, but he hasn’t had a standout performance since.
Sometimes all it takes is something to click, which seemed to happen yesterday from the start, as Kuhn appeared to be eager to prove a point in front of the Parkhead fans.
The former Ajax player wowed supporters with his ability to consistently defeat Cristian Montano; in the meantime, he demonstrated his end product by setting up Maeda for the first goal.
Moving forward, the 24-year-old can hopefully build on his impressive performance and be given the opportunity to shine against St Johnstone this weekend.
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