Celtic brush Hearts aside to restore seven-point gap over Rangers

Matt O'Riley scored his sixth cinch 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.

Hearts were looking to build on two wins and a draw in their previous three games. But 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.

Hearts had more than halved Celtic's usual allocation to 576 fans, many of whom displayed Palestine flags before kick-off, to allow more home supporters to attend. However, the section nearest the visiting support in the Roseburn Stand was virtually empty and the 17,608 crowd was comfortably Hearts' lowest in the league this season.

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.

Hearts rallied briefly. Joe Hart pushed a Kenneth Vargas strike past his near post and Alex Cochrane sent a dangerous ball across the face of the Celtic goal.

Celtic were largely in control and Zander Clark saved well from Maeda before the Japan attacker doubled the lead midway through the half. Nieuwenhof was again at fault, gifting possession to Celtic not long before Hatate played a one-two with O'Riley to get