Celtic 5 - 0 Hearts: Champions pull ten points clear as Hearts remain rooted

For the past couple of weeks, pundits have continually hammered on about how there were sure to be to more twists and turns in this Premiership title race even as Celtic stretched out in front.

As any sort of race effectively ended last night with Neil Lennon’s men establishing a ten-point lead, it turned out they were sort of right.

As Rangers have twisted in the wind these past few weeks – losing at Kilmarnock was the latest failing – Celtic have turned the screw in almighty fashion. In doing so, Lennon’s team are surely in an unassailable position in their pursuit of a ninth straight title.

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Goals, lots and lots of goals, have got them there. Their 5-0 thrashing of a Hearts side that fell to pieces as abjectly as teams propping up leagues tend to do, means they have now scored as many this season as they did in the whole of their last league campaign – in 12 fewer games. And four more than they did across the entirety of their 2017-18 championship win.

Goalscorer Olivier Ntcham battles for possession with Hearts' Craig Halkett. Picture: SNSGoalscorer Olivier Ntcham battles for possession with Hearts' Craig Halkett. Picture: SNS
Goalscorer Olivier Ntcham battles for possession with Hearts' Craig Halkett. Picture: SNS

Celtic are simply unstoppable, and were so even as they produced one of their more uneven performances. Hearts, in spells across the opening period, were effective and competitive.

Ultimately, none of this amounted to a hill of beans, though, as the Scottish champions handed out yet another beating to a Tynecastle team taking root at the bottom of the Premiership.

Meanwhile, Lennon’s men are imperious at its summit. And their eighth straight win since the break – and a 16th victory from their past 17 league games – demonstrated precisely why their advantage over Steven Gerrard’s men is set to be decisive.

They have so many ways to unpick opposition defences, there is an inevitability that they won’t just find one, but many. Daniel Stendel’s side collapsed like a house of cards when Christopher Jullien rose – while no-one in maroon bothered to do so – to head in a corner invitingly swung his way by Leigh Griffiths for Celtic’s second.

It didn’t matter from that point that, in a chess game of a first half, Hearts had moved their pieces around with sufficient fluidity to close down spaces that Celtic hadn’t opened up with their usual alacrity.

In the final analysis, Stendel’s team were powerless to prevent the nine-in-a-row-chasing Parkhead side breaching their defences five times when also spurning a hatful of opportunities.

This Celtic team have such an unquenchable thirst for goals because right now they have any number of personnel desperate to sate such appetites. Had you told Stendel his team would be the first this year to avoid coughing up a goal to either Odsonne Edouard or Griffiths, he might have thought he would be on to something. But Celtic are relentless in their multi-faceted ability to demolish opponents.

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Their latest such evisceration was started courtesy of Olivier Ntcham’s third goal in five games, for which hapless Hearts keeper Joel Pereira should be given an assist. Edouard twisted to make space for a shot that shouldn’t have troubled the on-loan Manchester United man. It did because he slapped it straight to Ntcham as if passing it to him. Ntcham fired it back with interest and, despite the Portuguese keeper getting a hand to it, seized his gift.

When Jullien made it 2-0 within seconds of the restart, Hearts became as porous as a colander in the face of a Celtic attacking tsunami. Callum McGregor broke forward down the right to exchanges passes with Greg Taylor before lashing a low drive towards goal that found the net via a deflection in 52 minutes, and, from then, it could have been any score, Lennon’s men having twice had efforts off the woodwork.

The Celtic manager was able to mix up his team and he did so to punishing effect for Hearts, with Ryan Christie claiming his first goal of 2020 within five minutes of his 62nd-minute introduction. He did so with a snapshot that clipped Craig Halkett to loop up over Pereira. The scoring was completed when, in the 79th minute, Hearts gave Jozo Simunovic all the freedom he needed to head in a Christie corner but the misery was not then over for Stendel’s sorry side.

Two minutes from time, substitute Marcel Langer slid in late on Scott Brown. Referee Willie Collum had no hesitation to brandish a red card. It is code red for this Hearts team, with one league win in 14 now. Whatever Stendel is attempting to do, it simply isn’t having the desired results. In contrast, Celtic, now further ahead of their Ibrox rivals than this time last year despite all the froth about possible last-day finishes, are a green machine that no team in the country can live with.