Amid the misery, disappointment and predictable frustrations of the 1-1 draw with Falkirk the debut of Ki Sung Yueng is almost a footnote. An impressive footnote.
Another home draw, more defensive frailties, more possession not converted into chances or goals and frustration growing amongst supporters who rightly expect to see their team beat the bottom club in the league at home.
Not the most encouraging environment for a new player to come into, especially coming from a different continent but the 20-year-old South Korean rose above those issues to turn in an impressive debut.
The common perception of Asian players is that they will be skillful and lightweight but Ki, or Dave as he is happy to be known, has a strong physical element to his play as well as a good first touch and willingness to play an early forward pass.
Falkirk, as expected, didn't pose much of an attacking threat and were content to flood the midfield and take their chances on the counter attack against a reshaped and reshaped again Celtic defence that finally consisted of Darren O'Dea and Josh Thompson, neither of whom had turned out for Celtic in the previous four months.
Ki took to the game quickly and looked comfortable alongside Marc Crosas in the centre of the park. Some of his quick passing was a pleasant surprise with Andreas Hinkel benefitting from the improved service as he raced down the right flank.
An early free kick picked out Marco Fortune who headed across goal and indicated the new bhoy's prowess from set-pieces.In the 65th minute Ki almost scored with a trademark 'Nakamura' free kick but was denied by an inspirational save from Falkirk keeper Robert Olejnik diving high to push the ball away from the postage stamp corner.
Predictably the pace of the match began to catch up on Dave after that and it was a surprise when Crosas was substituted when both Dave and Zheng Zhi looked to be suffering from a lack of match practice.
Morton at Cappielow will be a culture shock to Ki although the hold up on his registration may rule him out from the delights of Tuesday at Greenock.
With his World Cup place needing confirmed Ki will be anxious to make an impact on Celtic and could give an extra dimension to the midfield despite the recent impressive partnership of Crosas and Landry N'Guemo.
BBC highlights, editing out the penalty claim on Marco Fortune by Brian McLean, if the Celtic-Rangers match on January 3 hadn't been shown live by Sky would the BBC have shown Kyle Lafferty's booking?
