Malky Mackay made his home debut as Cardiff City manager and included several of his new signings as Cardiff started brightly but faded and never looked like coming back after Celtic had taken the lead.
A crowd announced at 10,700 gave good support and were able to welcome new signings Anthony Taylor, Don Cowie, Joe Mason and Aron Gunnarsson in the starting line up. City's other two new players Rob Earnshaw and Craig Conway were rested with litle niggles. Also out of the squad were Steve McPhail and Paul Quinn.
Mackay did they Ayatollah while his starting XI went into a huddle before kick off.
Cardiff strated well and created chances with Parkin blasting wide when through on goal, Gunnarsson heading onto the top of the bar and Taylor sending an acrobatic volley just over.
Celtic were left to deal with the City pressure and for the best part of half an hour gave David Marshall little or nothing to do.
But in an instant the game changed. Joe Ledley, skippering Celtic against his former club started a move in midfield, his ball wide left was crossed perfectly by Izaguirre for Anthony Stokes (no.10 in Jon Candy's pic, right) to head past Marshall.
Celtic pushed further forward and Marshall needed to get down to smother another header and was called to push away a free kick. Mark Hudson and Anthony Gerrard were also needed to quell the upturn in Celtic's work rate.
The teams remained the same at the start of the second half and it was a training exercise for Celtic as they nullified any hope Cardiff had of getting forward. Changes came and City replaced most of the side in the second half with the remaining senior players coming on and a few youngsters.
A Joe Mason penalty shout was the closest City came to seeing a sight of goal.
Celtic spurned several chance after chance with some fairly weak finishing. The corner flag was in more danger than the City keeper, who during the second half became Tom Heaton.
Glenn Loovens and Adam Matthews started for Celtic and all three former Cardiff players were given a great reception.
My positives from the night were the class still oozed by Peter Whittingham, the work rate of Kevin McNaughton and the raw talent of Joe Mason. Too early to judge many of the others but initial concerns are that Jon Parkin needs to up his game. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
Cardiff City: Marshall, McNaughton, Naylor, Hudson, Gerrard, Whittingham, Taylor, Cowie, Gunnarsson, Parkin, Mason.
Subs: Heaton, Evans, Gyepes, Keinan, Blake, Taiwo, Farah, Wildig, Jarvis.
Celtic: Pletikosa; Matthews, K. Wilson, Loovens, Izaguirre; Commons, Kayal, Ki, Ledley; Hooper, Stokes.
Subs: Zaluska, Majstorovic, Maloney, M. Wilson, Mulgrew, Wanyama