Hearts 1-4 Celtic

MATT O’RILEY SCORED his sixth Scottish Premiership goal of the season to send Celtic on their way to a comfortable 4-1 win over Hearts.

O’Riley volleyed home brilliantly early on and Daizen Maeda and Kyogo Furuhashi added further goals as Celtic thoroughly dominated for the first hour at Tynecastle.

Lawrence Shankland pulled a goal back but substitute Tomoki Iwata hit his first goal for Celtic to finish the hosts off in the 81st minute.

Reo Hatate missed a penalty in what was otherwise an impressive performance from the Celtic midfielder.

An unchanged Celtic side restored their seven-point lead at the top of the table 24 hours after Philippe Clement enjoyed a 4-0 win over Hibernian in his first match as Rangers manager.

The atmosphere was punctured inside four minutes as O’Riley ran off marker Calem Nieuwenhof and watched Luis Palma’s lofted pass drop over his shoulder before volleying into the far corner.

Nieuwenhof was again at fault when Maeda doubled Celtic’s lead midway through the half, gifting possession to Celtic not long before Hatate played a one-two with O’Riley to get beyond the home defence and drill a cross which Maeda bundled home from close range.

Celtic remained well on top and Hatate hit the post from the spot in the first minute of the second half after Alex Cochrane had been harshly penalised by Nick Walsh when Furuhashi got his body in front of the left-back and went down.

Hatate atoned for his miss in the 51st minute with a wonderful flick which sent Palma racing down the left flank. Celtic players were queuing up to meet the Honduran winger’s low cross and Furuhashi swept the ball high into the net.

Shankland forced a decent parry from Joe Hart just before curling in off the post in the 64th minute after Maeda had gifted him possession 20 yards from goal.

Iwata then sparked a mass exodus of Hearts fans when he fired in off the bar from 18 yards after Zander Clark had denied another Hoops substitute Oh Hyeon-gyu.