Those of us who were at Fir Park on Saturday were well rewarded – served up a sheer treat of a match. These 90 minutes teemed with goals, crisp passing and attacking football from both sides. There was also, for around 15 minutes, the hint of a near-miraculous comeback from Motherwell in the second half – four goals down at half-time but quickly getting two back and giving Celtic the shakes – before it all became too much for Mark McGhee’s men to claw back.

Gordon Strachan is a “clipboard manager” – you rarely see him without one under his arm – and he freely projects an image of the hands-on coach, forever on the training ground telling players what to do in this or that situation on the park. The fruits of such instruction aren’t always obvious in games but, on Saturday, Strachan could be proud of himself.

Motherwell are no pushovers, but some of Celtic’s strong, slick football must have been akin to embarking on a journey courtesy of some dubious substances for the watching Celtic manager. “I thought we were magnificent. That’s the best that we’ve played in a long time,” Strachan said later.

There was a certain mystery about it, too. Some would argue that Celtic’s two most skilful players are Aiden McGeady and Shunsuke Nakamura, yet this slightly lofty exhibition of football was put on while both these players sat on the bench.

Nakamura came on after 80 minutes, by which time the deed was done, making his contribution irrelevant. McGeady didn’t appear at all and, in his absence, Celtic homed in on poor Graeme Smith, scoring all four goals within 42 minutes.

The Scottish champions have been galvanised by the return of Shaun Maloney. Off the pitch, Maloney is a likeable, unassuming character, whose natural modesty tends to come before anything. On it, though, he is no shrinking violet, taking the ball to feet and enjoyably scampering at defenders, bemusing them with an ability to go either way.

On this evidence, indeed, Maloney is more direct than McGeady, possessing a homing instinct for goal that the young Scots-Irishman has yet to perfect. It must warm the hearts of both Strachan and Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive, that the fractious circumstances in which Maloney left Celtic two years ago were sufficiently forgotten about to allow him to return last month.

Maloney put Celtic ahead after five minutes, prodding home Scott Brown’s cross to the far post, but it was what happened thereafter that was truly remarkable. A deluge of Celtic attacks unfolded, either through Maloney careering down the left, or via passes being pinged to the feet of Georgios Samaras and Scott McDonald by Marc Crosas, a young Spaniard who also made a pleasing contribution for Celtic.

Samaras? This gangling Greek chap confounds all known football logic and is certainly unorthodox. Maybe the latter is at the heart of his secret of success. At times Samaras looks so out of things, so ineffectual, almost as if he is a backing-singer for a rock group who is playing football in his spare time. You feel a hard centre-half could easily ruffle him up and put him off. And yet, in 50-50 challenges on Saturday, the ball had an uncanny knack of breaking the striker’s way and, to cap it all, he scored two of Celtic’s goals, the second of these quite a peach as he took McDonald’s flick and ran through to sweep his shot low past Smith from 14 yards.

You might think that all this would have pleased McDonald, who had fairly bashed home Celtic’s third high into the net after 24 minutes, but think again. McDonald, exhibiting a size of backside which to this observer looked as if it had been sitting around a mite too long, regularly harangued Samaras for his failure to find him with a pass, to the point where you thought McDonald was almost embarking on verbal bullying.

As perverse as it sounds, Motherwell were and still are a force under McGhee. He is a convincing, combative manager, who possesses that gift craved by all football coaches of being able to make his players believe in themselves. Last season Motherwell’s erstwhile put-upon players felt McGhee take them by the scruff of the neck, put them in their 4-3-3 shape, and order them to go out and impose their own agenda on matches. Everyone saw what happened.

On Saturday, after a half-time talking to by McGhee in what were otherwise hopeless circumstances – 4-0 down – Motherwell came back out and set Fir Park alight with their game. They scored twice in three minutes through John Sutton and Davie Clarkson and suddenly injected an enjoyable, anarchic quality into the game. The truth is, even Celtic’s ditty-happy fans were momentarily nervous. But the gap created by the visitors’ venomous first half proved too much to overturn.

“It wasn’t the system that we played, we just couldn’t live with Celtic in the first half,” McGhee said. “They were so good, so fast, so powerful, so inventive – we were out-classed by them in every department. In that kind of form, frankly, I don’t think any SPL side could live with Celtic. But I’m proud that we didn’t just go into our shells, and we were much better in the second half. We got back into it, although the damage of the first half proved too much.”

Still, Motherwell have a Uefa Cup adventure against AS Nancy to enjoy on Thursday and, despite this score-line, they should not feel intimidated given some of their play. There remains brightness aplenty at Fir Park.

Motherwell ratings (4-3-3)

G Smith 4 P Quinn 5 S Craigan 6 M Reynolds 5 S Hammell 7 S Hughes 7 K Lasley 7 S McGarry 5 D Clarkson 7 J Sutton 6 C Porter 6 Substitutes J O’Brien 4 (for McGarry, 57min), J Murphy (for Clarkson, 86) Not used G Nielson, R Malcolm, D Smith, M Fitzpatrick, K Connolly

Celtic ratings (4-4-2)

A Boruc 5 M Wilson 7 G Caldwell 6 S McManus 7 L Naylor 6 B Robson 7 M Crosas 6 S Brown 6 S Maloney 7 S McDonald 6 G Samaras 7 Substitutes S Nakamura (for Crosas, 80min), C Sheridan (for McDonald, 86) Not used M Brown, A McGeady, G Loovens, M Donati, P Caddis

Referee: C Thomson Attendance: 8,407