A seven-goal rout of Hearts has Celtic fans asking whether the champions look sharper without their big-money striker Hogh in the picture.
Celtic put Hearts to the sword with a 7-1 win, and the scoreline has done more than send a message to their Scottish Premiership rivals. It has reopened a awkward question around the club's record signing, Hogh: do the Hoops function better without him?
A result this lopsided naturally invites big conclusions. When a side scores seven in a league game, supporters and pundits look for the reasons, and the shape of the team, the movement up front and the tempo all come under the microscope. Hogh, brought in as a headline addition, is now at the center of that conversation, fairly or not.
It is worth keeping perspective. One emphatic win does not settle a debate about a player's value, and a heavy victory can flatter a system as much as it exposes a question mark. Record signings are judged over months, not ninety minutes, and Celtic's attacking structure can look dominant with different personnel on the pitch.
Still, the pressure is now on both sides of the equation. Hogh will want to show he can add something to a team that has just played with this kind of fluency, while the manager faces the challenge of fitting an expensive forward into a unit that has just hit seven. How Celtic answer that in the coming weeks will tell us far more than any single scoreline.
