ABERDEEN ENDED A run of 25 straight league defeats at Celtic Park to hold off Rangers and finish second to Celtic in the Scottish Premiership with a 1-0 away win on Sunday.
Andrew Considine smashed home the only goal of the game two minutes into the second-half to inflict Brendan Rodgers’s first home league defeat in two seasons at Celtic manager.
Victory for the Dons meant they finished three points clear of Rangers, who trailed 3-0 and led 5-3 before drawing 5-5 in an incredible match with Hibernian at Easter Road.
Failure to finish second means former England and Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard will have to negotiate four rounds of qualifiers just to make the Europa League group stages when he takes over at Ibrox next season.
Celtic had won all nine previous meetings with Aberdeen since Rodgers took charge and the Northern Irishman named a strong side just seven days before the Glasgow giants attempt to win back-to-back domestic trebles for the first time when they face Motherwell in the Scottish Cup final next weekend.
However, with the league long since won, Celtic produced a lacklustre display on the day they got their hands on the Premiership trophy.
Aberdeen made the breakthrough early after the break when Kenny McLean, in his final game for the club before joining Norwich, teed up defender Considine to drill low past Scott Bain.
Rodgers showed his priority was on the Cup final as he replaced highly sought after duo Moussa Dembele and Kieran Tierney shortly afterwards.
And Aberdeen held out to seal second place for a fourth consecutive season despite Rangers’ remarkable fightback at Easter Road.
Hibs needed to win by six goals to leapfrog Rangers into third in the table and were halfway there inside 22 minutes through Florian Kamberi, Scott Allan and Jamie McLaren.
But in their chase for goals, the hosts left themselves woefully exposed at the back as James Tavernier, Jordan Rossiter and a wonderful Bruno Alves free-kick levelled before half-time.
Jason Holt and Josh Windass then put Rangers into a 5-3 lead before McLaren pulled a goal back and Holt was sent-off to set up a grandstand finish.
McLaren then completed his hat-trick in stoppage time to deservedly share the spoils of a 10-goal thriller.
Great save by Kelleher near the end. Comfortable afternoon for him
Top player.
Super performance and result albeit against a woeful Watford. Unlikely to be a worse performance by any PL team this season. Salah is unbelievable and his goal was magical, give him the contract his performances and goals deserve. Great to see Firmino scoring. Though Kelleher had nothing to do he kept his concentration to make a very good save at the end. Gonna be a tight title race. Surprised Salah and Mane played the 90 minutes, Minamino could have done with game time especially against that Watford team.
Mo Salah is WOW!!! a pleasure to watch him…..Firmino not bad either : )
Time to sack Ranieri…….
@John S: dilly ding dilly dong
@Heckler davies: dilly ding, dilly gone
Class win and 3 more handy points. We will be hard to stop This season as we put last seasons blip behind us
Danny Rose will sleep tonight. Great performance against an albeit poor side!!
Give Mo all the money. Almost 0% chance of being able to replace him
Lewandowski and Salah are the best players in the world on current form.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a PL side as bad as that Watford side today….if they lost 10-0 it wouldn’t have been a surprise! Woeful…
@Ottomaaan: you forgot to mention that they were up against a solid side with a rampant front three, there, I fixed it for you…. :)
@Gordon Larney: no need to fix anything. That was the worst performance I’ve ever seen from a PL side, dreadful stuff and Liverpool could have put 10 past them.
@Ottomaaan: have to agree. I was at the game and never seen such a bad performance from a PL team.
Salah in great form. But how long canhe hold that form? He has 20-25 goals in him a season, but he’s up and down. If he held this form, he’d be close to 40 goals?
Bigger tests against Athletico and United on the way.
@Finn Faulkner: did you like your own comment…
@Finn Faulkner: how long can he do that. ? He has been doing it for the last 4 seasons. 104 goals in 166 games in the Premier league but you think he should score more. Okay so
@Finn Faulkner: you’re gonna need bigger bait on that hook ….
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: But by that metric 4 seasons at 40 goals would be 160 goals. He hasn t done that. But my point is that if he can keep that killer hat on his head for a prolonged period, and with our squad almost injury free, he could break records for us. I’m HOPING he keeps this lethal form indefinitely. He still can’t be put in the Messi/Ronaldo category until he starts being seriously clinical. I’d love to see him win the Balloon d’Or this year (or the next)
@len len: No, but seeing as you need likes, here, have mine. Have a lovely day.
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: you included his Chelsea stats there, it’s 102 in 153 for Liverpool
@Shane Roche: It’s still an amazing number of goals per season, but I think he can go even further, he needs to keep this current form. Biggest tests are against Athletico and then United.
That salah. Goal was pure roy of the rovers.. Pure art.. He must be a great dancer..
As good as Liverpool are, and they are really good. This in my opinion is all about Klopp.