They wanted to dine at the top table but instead there was a sense of still being on the outside looking in.

Celtic left the pitch on the back of a 5-0 defeat, their heaviest ever home loss in European competition and the club's worst home defeat since 1895. 

In many ways it was a night with their noses pressed to the glass as Celtic got a close up of what real money can buy.

There were just two minutes and 11 seconds played of this opening game in Group B last night when a decked Leigh Griffiths was punching the turf in frustration.

It was a simple portent for what was to come.

The heavy overhead Glasgow sky had dried up after an afternoon of incessant downpours but for Celtic it was an evening when little could have sheltered them from the manner in which their parade was rained on.

Brendan Rodgers had beseeched his side beforehand to make sure their visitors could feel the Celtic players breathing down their necks, but the problem was getting close enough to them in the first instance proved somewhat problematic.

The grace, speed and aggression of a side who played with pace and intelligence made for a night in which Celtic chased shadows.

Inevitable, perhaps, for a team who have spent obscene sums this summer on formalising their pretensions to go on and win the Champions League, the Parisians were so easy on the eye it seemed that there was a sense of the Celtic players wanting to stand back and applaud.

Certainly, there were times when the Hoops support were willing to accept they had seen a side ooze class; as Adrien Rabiot was replaced in the second period the PSG player was applauded as he walked off after an outstanding contribution to the performance.

There was recognition too for the impossible task handed to 18-year-old Anthony Ralston, Celtic’s right-back who was thrown in for just the fifth start of his senior Parkhead career with the enviable task of keeping watch on the devilish feet of Neymar.

To be fair to the wet-behind-the-ears youth academy graduate, the challenge of going up against the street-smart, waspish Brazilian playmaker always had a look of the no-wins about it.

And yet, although Ralston’s head went down in the immediate aftermath of Neymar’s 19th minute opener much of the sense of menace prior to that had come from Kylian Mbappe on the opposite side.

Not that the kid was star-struck; at one point as Neymar went down under very little – no, really – Ralston was quick to tell him to get to his feet although there was nothing ambiguous about the booking given the the teenager when he went through Thiago Motta in the second period of this game.

That Neymar would be front and centre of this game after a summer in which he dominated the transfer headlines seemed inevitable. Not only did he net the first but it was he who then headed Marco Verratti’s cross across goal to tee up PSG’s second of the night.

It had been earmarked for Cavani but his failure to connect did not deter the world’s most expensive teenager who lashed a rasping effort high into Craig Gordon’s net.

For Celtic, it created a galling stat with Neymar at its core; the Brazilian has claimed five goals and 7 assists against the Parkhead club in 11 meetings. Little wonder that his booking in the closing stages of this game drew lusty applause from the home support.

That second goal was the end of the game as a contest, if ever there really had been one.

Celtic had created a couple of chances in the opening half although the often snapped chances and miscontrolled balls owed something to a sense of being spooked by the finesse of a PSG side who were entirely composed whenever they took possession.

Olivier Ntcham had an early opportunity to create something when he took control just outside of the PSG box but, with Patrick Roberts waiting in space on his right-hand side, the midfielder took aim with a relatively tame effort that went well wide of the target.By contrast, PSG oozed a sense of calm.

At one stage in the opening half and under pressure in their own box as Celtic tried to press and harry, PSG simply knocked the ball around as though they were going through their warm-up, effortlessly playing their way out of any supposed hint of trouble.

Celtic made mistakes. Stuart Armstrong was culpable of giving the ball away and was hooked at the break, but he was not the only one guilty of gifting possession in the face of sheer pressure and the feeling of playing against an extra man. In the middle of the park Scott Brown and Ntcham laboured under the weight of trying to keep pace as they were flooded by the dark blue shirts of their visitors.

Celtic’s night got worse when Jozo Simunovic, the only fit central defender at the club, tugged the jersey of Cavani. Both the booking and the penalty award were uncontested by a sheepish looking Simunovic and Cavani stepped up to convert the set-piece.

Celtic’s ignominy got worse through no fault of their own when an idiot ran onto the pitch shortly before the interval to take a swipe at Mbappe.

Widely booed by most inside the stadium, the ‘supporter’ was allowed to run a full half of the pitch before taking a fresh air boot at the world’s most expensive teenager. He missed his target but Celtic can be sure that UEFA will not with whatever sanction is handed down.

With just over 20 minutes to go Rodgers took off Griffiths – whose most telling contribution was a trademark free-kick that Alphonse Areola tipped over the bar – as Odsonne Edouard was introduced to the fray.

But as the game drew to close there was a further sting in the tale. Mikael Lustig turned Julian Draxler’s effort into his own net and seconds later Celtic’s night was complete when Cavani netted a fine header to set the seal on a difficult 90 minutes..