Bhoys up ante as deadly duo despatch Dundee

JOHN HARTSON and Henrik Larsson scored two goals in four first-half minutes to give Celtic three valuable points and keep the heat on leaders Rangers.

The Welshman bagged his 18th goal of the campaign and the Swede his 33rd to secure the points and increase bottom-of-the-table United’s woes.

But that killed the game by half-time and the Celtic fans had little to warm them during the second half.

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill is keeping his fingers crossed on the fitness of Johan Mjallby after he hobbled out of the game. “We won’t know how serious he is until tomorrow,” O’Neill said.

“We obviously took him off and decided to take no risks, but it’s not a recurrence of the previous injuries O’Neill singled out Jamie Smith for special praise. The youngster sparked in his second consecutive game to earn the man of the match award. “I was very pleased with him and he’s definitely got the ability. There’s a lot of competition in that area, but he’s always been in and around the scene.” Dundee United manager Paul Hegarty felt the result was fair on his bottom-of-the-table side and set his sights on beating Motherwell in this weekend’s crunch clash.

“It’s one of those things,” he said. “Celtic are an exceptional side CELTIC: Hedman, Mjallby, Balde, Valgaeren, Agathe, Lambert, Petrov, Sutton, Smith, Larsson, Hartson.

DUNDEE UTD: Gallacher, Wilson, McCracken, Daniele Chiarini, Bollan, Duff, Paterson, Miller, McIntyre, Dodds, Lilley.

Referee: J Underhill.