Bhoys’ blitz breaks Hearts

Hearts 1 Celtic 4

The champions destroyed Hearts’ pre-match optimism by half-time as Henrik Larsson hit a double after Chris Sutton and Stilian Petrov had fired home early on to give them a great platform to build on.

Substitute John Hartson must have been fearing the worst as the two strikers ripped the home side apart at times.

Gary Wales gave the home side a late consolation, but the damage was already done as Celtic closed the gap on Scottish Premier League leaders Rangers to a single point.

‘‘There have been a number of those top displays,’’ admitted O’Neill. ‘‘It was definitely scintillating stuff.

‘‘It was a great start for us and we knew this was a big game. It’s always difficult here so it’s important we started well.

‘‘I thought it would be more difficult. We needed to be right from the start.

‘‘We scored a great goal from Chris Sutton and we were 2-0 up with Stan and that quickly gave us a head start.

‘‘I was delighted to get the third goal and we scored the fourth just before half-time. The second half was one of those where you take your foot off the gas a wee bit. The job was done.’’

O’Neill refused to single out any players for special praise despite the performance of Sutton and Larsson. But he admitted it was vital to stay in touch with Rangers. ‘‘It was a big effort here and with Rangers having won yesterday it was important for us to win ’’

HEARTS: McKenzie, Maybury, Pressley, McKenna, Severin, Stamp (Webster 45), McGeown (Simmons 45), McMullan, Valois, Kirk (Wales 77), de Vries.

CELTIC: Douglas, Valgaeren (Crainey 75), Balde, Laursen, Agathe, Lambert, Lennon, Petrov (Thompson 68), Guppy (Hartson 75), Sutton, Larsson.

Referee: K Clark (Scotland).