Second-half goals from Kenny Miller and then Shunsuke Nakamura, immediately after Milne had been curiously red-carded for a professional foul on Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, made life comfortable for the champions.

Vennegoor of Hesselink added a fourth before the end to hand Celtic their first win of the new season despite being outplayed for long spells.

But the home side can point to the turning point as being Milne's dismissal as colleague Darren Barr seemed to be close enough to the incident with Vennegoor of Hesselink to cause uproar among the Falkirk fans when referee Dougie McDonald pulled the red card out.

Afterwards Celtic manager Gordon Strachan was quick to praise Miller's performance.

"I'm very pleased for Kenny. He set the standard on how we close down up front. He got about the place and we followed him in. And he's forced himself into the team because of his training performances and his hunger and that showed."

Strachan went on to describe his team's performance as "absolutely brilliant" but he took issue with being told by the fourth official to tone down his celebrations.

"You can't celebrate now. In the PC world it's impossible.

Because people have been calling you names left right and centre for an hour they've decided that jumping up and celebrating is terrible."