Celtic player's unseen classy gesture against Hearts fans missed

Goals from Celtic's deadline day signings, Arne Engels and Luke McCowan, were enough to hand them a 2-0 win and all three points against Hearts. It proved to be a trickier game than expected, considering Steven Naismith's side have one point from their first five Premiership games of the campaign.

It took a spot kick for Celtic to open the scoring. New Bhoy, Engels, stepped up confidently and sent the goalkeeper the wrong way before calmly rolling the ball into the back of the net to make it 1-0 to the Hoops.

It showed the Belgian midfielder's class and was a glimpse into why Celtic broke their transfer record to sign him this summer. That was not the only classy thing about that penalty though.

In fact, Engels was not the first choice to take the spot kick. Reo Hatate was the penalty taker on the day but the 'selfless' Japanese midfielder let the Belgian midfielder open his account for Celtic. As reported by The Scotsman, Brendan Rodgers said about the situation:

"Reo was our number one (penalty taker) and Arne was number two.

“They trained yesterday with (analyst) Jack Lyons. Jack looks after those guys on the penalties and both of them were very, very good in terms of taking of it.

"I think Reo’s selflessness got the better of him and he gave it to Arne. I'm just happy he scored. He might have heard about it (otherwise)! But you can see how comfortable he was in taking it. He showed great composure and finished well."

Celtic player's unseen classy gesture against Hearts fans missed

Of course, there is plenty of competition in the Celtic midfield right now. Engels might be the club's record signing but Paulo Bernardo has made an excellent start to the season as well. That makes Hatate's act of selflessness even more impressive.

If Engels end up missing the spot kick then we might have been looking back at Hatate's decision with a different microscope. Thankfully, he did not and as a result, it will go fown as a classy gesture.

Let's see if this first goal for Celtic helps Engels settle in quicker. He has big boots to fill. Those of Matt O'Riley. The Danish midfielder had close to 40 goal contributions last season. That will be a tough number to get close to.