Celtic were barely required to ease themselves out of second gear as they cantered to the easiest of wins against an abysmal and error-strewn Hearts side who only performed to anything resembling an acceptable level when they were three goals down.
If Philippe Clement, the new Rangers manager, was under any illusions of the size of the task facing him at Ibrox to get closer to Celtic, he only needed to watch this mismatch between the leaders and a side who have ambitions to at least bridge the gap to the Old Firm. This was men against boys for long, long periods.
Celtic were on their way to their sixth league win in a row within four minutes thanks to the outstanding Matt O’Riley. Daizen Maeda doubled their advantage and they could even afford the luxury of a Reo Hatate missed penalty before Kyogo Furuhashi grabbed his customary goal against Hearts. The home captain Lawrence Shankland ended a personal goal drought with a consolation but the substitute Tomoki Iwata completed the scoring with his first Celtic goal.
There’s something of a myth that Gorgie is a difficult location for Celtic to visit. In fact, yesterday was their fifth win at Tynecastle in a row and few have been as comfortable. A considerably more challenging task awaits the champions on Wednesday when they attempt to win a home Champions League group stage game for the first time in ten years against an in-form Atletico Madrid side who have now won six games in a row.
But they could be thankful to Hearts for providing little more than a training exercise to prepare for it in a desperately one-sided contest. There’s precious little in the way of evidence that they are making any progress under Steven Naismith and this risible display was on the back of tossing away a two-goal lead in the Edinburgh derby before the international break. On this evidence, they have a huge amount of work to do before trying to reclaim third spot.
It took Celtic less than four minutes to make an almost immediate impact with their first attack of the game. A clipped ball forward from Luis Palma, Celtic’s Honduran international, was met by O’Riley who had darted into the box off Calem Nieuwenhof and executed a perfect left-footed volley past Zander Clark. O’Riley, the September player of the month, was called up to the Denmark squad last week and although he did not play in their narrow win in San Marino, yesterday’s goal — his sixth of the season — was the latest accolade in what has been a terrific season for the midfielder.
The lead was doubled in the 24th minute and Hearts didn’t help themselves again. They had been guilty of plenty of sloppy passes and Nieuwenhof squandered possession. A quick Celtic throw-in caught Hearts sleeping and O’Riley and Reo Hatate teamed up on the right. The Japanese international then rolled a cross into his international colleague Maeda who couldn’t miss from close range. The goal survived a VAR check for offside and Celtic were cruising.
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Celtic’s 576 supporters — minus the banned Green Brigade fans group after a row with the Parkhead hierarchy over “extremely serious unsafe and unacceptable behaviour at recent away matches” — were thoroughly enjoying themselves.
The home punters meanwhile, were starting to get extremely restless and little wonder. Their team were making mistakes all over the pitch, many of which were unforced errors. Celtic were competent and playing well, but their task was made a lot simpler by a dismal Hearts side.
Amazingly, Naismith saw fit to keep the same XI on at the interval given the paucity of their first half display. He must have been expecting an instant reaction and he certainly got it – they gave away a penalty after 12 seconds from the restart. Harry Cochrane chopped Furuhashi and the referee, Nick Walsh, gave the spot-kick, which survived a VAR check. Although Hatate sent Clark the wrong way, his penalty thudded off the post.
At least that gave a very flat atmosphere a lift temporarily as Hearts won a corner, but any hopes of a comeback ended four minutes later when Celtic cut through Hearts yet again and Furuhashi turned in a Palma cross in splendid isolation. It was the eighth game in a row he had scored against Hearts – in every match he’s played against them.
If anything, Hearts had got worse and the sizeable chasm of quality and class between the teams had grown. Quite why it took Naismith two minutes before the hour mark to take off Lowry and Nieuwenhof, who were both out of their depth, only he will know.
Almost instantly, Hearts improved and their captain, Shankland, ended an eight-game goal drought with a turn and shot in the 65th minute after a misplaced pass from Maeda.
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The hosts did at least step it up in a bid to restore some pride and Celtic appeared to ease off as the game wound down to its inevitable conclusion with Shankland going close to another goal. Celtic restored a three-goal advantage and a true reflection of the game when Iwata eventually drilled the ball into the net after his fellow substitute Oh Hyeon-gyu had seen an effort blocked. It is the first time Celtic have won five away games in a row in six years.
Hearts (4-2-3-1) Z Clark 6 — T Sibbick 5, R Kent 5, K Rowles 4, H Cochrane 5 — C Devlin 6 (J Grant 82min, 2), C Nieuwenhof 2 (B Baningime 58, 5) — A Forrest 4, K Vargas 6 (L Boyce 73, 3), A Lowry 3 (Y Oda 58, 6); L Shankland 6. Booked Vargas, Sibbick.
Celtic (4-3-3) J Hart 7 – A Johnston 7, C Carter-Vickers 7, L Scales 7, G Taylor 6 – M O’Riley 8, R Hatate 7 (T Iwata 66 min, 6), C McGregor 7 (P Bernardo 82, 2) – D Maeda 7 (H Yang 72, 4), K Furuhashi 7 (H Oh 72, 3), L Palma 7 (J Forrest 66, 6). Booked Iwata.
Referee N Walsh.
Attendance 17,608.
