Edinburgh, Scotland – Celtic maintained its place atop the Scottish Premier League on Wednesday by easily dispatching Hearts, 4-0, at Tynecastle Stadium.
The Hoops jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first 30 minutes with goals from Lassed Nouioui and Mikael Lustig before an own goal from Ryan Stevenson put the home side in a huge hole.
Gary Hooper claimed his fourth league goal of the campaign for Celtic in the 83rd minute, while Hearts had a chance to pull back a late goal, only for Celtic goalkeeper Fraser Forster to stop a spot kick from Marius Zaliukas.
The win keeps Celtic one point clear of second-place Hibernian, which claimed a 1-0 win at St Johnstone with a late goal from Paul Cairney.
St Johnstone looked poised to take the lead 10 minutes from time when the club was awarded a penalty kick after Dave MacKay was brought down inside the area by David Wotherspoon.
Substitute Nigel Hasselbaink stepped to the spot, but goalkeeper Ben Williams saved the shot, as well as the rebound attempt from Liam Craig.
Making matters worse is the fact that Hibs went down the field and netted the winning goal less than two minutes later as Cairney pounced on a loose ball inside the area and drove his shot beyond the reach of goalkeeper Alan Mannus.
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