WITH 10 minutes to go, Jozo Simunovic made a neat job of glancing in Ryan Christie’s pinpoint tight-wing corner-kick to make it 5-0 for Celtic against Hearts at Parkhead.
It was a night of celebration in the east end of Glasgow as news came through that Steven Gerrard’s Ibrox side had toppled to a 2-1 loss to Kilmarnock at Rugby Park,
The champions had moved TEN points ahead at the Premiership pinnacle as they eyed a stupendous nine in a row and remained on course for a phenomenal and historic quadruple treble.
Amid the joy, the Croatian centre-back took the applause from his team-mates and supporters after claiming the champions’ incredible 127th goal of the campaign.
Olivier Ntcham got the show on the road against the Tynecastle side with the opener on the half-hour mark and it remained an unaltered scoreline until Christopher Jullien powered in a header from a Leigh Griffiths left-wing set-play a minute after the interval. It was the towering French defender’s seventh effort since his £7million arrival from Toulouse in the summer.
Callum McGregor, with his tenth of the term, swept in No.3 after a fine flowing move, Ryan Christie rifled his 19th of the programme for No.4 and the came Jozo’s moment of glory.
NUMBER ONE…Olivier Ntcham (centre) fires low past Hearts keeper Joel Pereira.
NUMBER TWO…Christopher Jullien powers in an unstoppable header.
NUMBER THREE…Callum McGregor sweeps in a sweet shot with Odsonne Edouard getting a close-up view.
NUMBER FOUR…Ryan Christie leaves the Portuguese custodian helpless.
NUMBER FIVE…Jozo Simunovic holds his hands aloft as he ends the capital punishment for the visitors.
Amazingly, the Hoops have now scored more goals than they managed in the previous campaign. In the treble treble season, the team collected 121 goals and Neil Lennon’s men surpassed that when Vakoun Issouf Bayo rolled in the third in the 3-0 Scottish Cup triumph over Clyde at Broadwood on Sunday.
So far this time, the title kings have played 46 games and that averages at 2.76 goals per match.
This time last year, Celtic had failed to score in seven games, on this occasion the Parkhead men have fired blanks on two occasions.
One came against Cluj in the non-event Europa League Group E encounter in Romania when the side lost 2-0. The other, remarkably, came in the 2-0 loss to Livingston in Lothian in October after Ryan Christie had been red carded.
The breakdown of the strike rate this season is: 77 in the Premiership, 13 in the Betfred League Cup, five in the Scottish Cup and 32 in Europe.
CQN‘s message to 24-goal Odsonne Edouard and Co is: Carry On Scoring, lads!
TEN-SHUN: HERE WE GO FOR NINE A ROW
