Celtic 5-1 Kilmarnock – That’s why we’re Champions | OneFootball

Celtic responded emphatically to last week’s shock defeat At McDiarmid Park with Derek McInnes’ side being in the wrong place at the wrong time as the Champions Elect raced into a four goal lead in a whirlwind start with two goals from Reo Hatate added to be a Daizen Maeda tap in and a wonderful strike from distance from Cameron Carter-Vickers.

A narrow offside decision cost Daizen his own double while Sinisalo will be disappointed at losing out on a clean sheet with a cross come shot drifting in at the far post to give the tiny band of Kilmarnock supporters something to cheer about.

The second half was a much duller affair. Arne Engels came closest, hitting the bar and it looked like Kilmarnock had got a second half draw before Anthony Ralston scored Celtic’s fifth with the last kick of the ball.

Now attention turns to Pittodrie where an Aberdeen victory over theRangers, who will have one eye on their second leg tie in the Europa League in Bilbao on Thursday night, will guarantee Celtic a fourth consecutive title.

A draw makes it 99.99% certain as Celtic would be 15 points ahead with a huge goal difference advantage. But the celebrations will wait until after the split and while we’re all always delighted to see theRangers lose, we’d take having to win ourselves in the first game after the split in a fortnight’s time.

Celtic will have three away matches and two at home, with the last match almost certainly being at Celtic Park. It’s likely we’ll be away in the first match but not at Ibrox. Most likely is a trip to Tannadice or Pittodrie.

It doesn’t matter that much. Celtic will be Champions for a 13th time in 14 seasons as this remarkable period of Celtic dominance continues.

Brendan Rodgers confirmed pre-match that he is 150% certain to be here next season, expect the hacks to say ‘aye but he never said 200%. Feel their pain.

Greg Taylor brought his baby daughter onto the park as the teams came out and he got the Man of the Match. The Bhoy is a keeper. Hopefully it’s sorted.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers told Sky Sports: “It’s what this group is, a really honest group. The goals were brilliant. Some individual quality and strikes. Overall it was the perfect performance.

On tomorrow’s match between Aberdeen and theRangers, he adds: “Whatever happens happens. It’s about ourselves. We wanted today to be the coronation, but we’ve given ourselves a brilliant opportunity now.

“We’ll see what the split brings and we’ll look to win our next game.”

Rodgers was also asked about Greg Taylor, who impressed again at left-back, winning the MOTM award. Taylor is out of contract at the end of the season and is yet to sign a new deal at Celtic.

“I’ll always fight to the very end for a player,” Rodgers told Sky Sports. “Greg’s earned the right to make the decision he wants.

“You see in the performance today how important someone in that role is, he plays like a midfield player for us.

“We’ll see what happens at the end of the season.”

Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes gave his post-match thoughts to Sky Sports: “Celtic were very good in that opening period. There were a couple of special goals in there. We had to suffer a bit. “We won’t play a team of that quality again. The fight begins now. We need to try and show we’re the best team in that bottom six.

“We picked a team to get a clean sheet second half, up until the last seconds we did exactly that. Other than that we were very rigid second half.”