Scottish Premiership: Celtic rally to beat Livingston and close on Hearts

2 months ago 63

Benjamin Nygren struck twice as Celtic won 4-2 at Livingston after twice equalising in a frantic opening 10 minutes, a result that reduced Hearts’ lead to three points as a result of their lunchtime defeat at Hibernian.

The left-back Cristian Montano twice put Livi ahead only for Nygren and Yang Hyun-jun to equalise. The Sweden midfielder put Celtic in front in the 31st minute and an Arne Engels penalty gave them some breathing space before the break.

Bottom-placed Livingston, who have gone 17 matches without a win, continued to trouble Celtic’s back three but Wilfried Nancy’s team did enough to seal a second consecutive win.

Montano’s first came inside three minutes after a mistake by Kieran Tierney, but Nygren levelled following a corner. Montano soon made it 2-1, lashing in Scott Pittman’s cross after letting it bounce, but Yang emerged with the ball from a goalmouth scramble and knocked it over the line.

Just after the half-hour a long spell of possession ended with Nygren whipping a shot in off the far post after receiving Tierney’s pass just inside the box. Celtic were then handed a 39th-minute penalty when Matthew MacDermid was sent to the monitor by the video assistant referee and ruled that Engels’ corner had struck the arm of Daniel Finlayson as the defender tried to head clear. The Belgian sent Jerome Prior the wrong way from the spot.

Raphael Sallinger made two crucial stoppage-time saves as Hibernian held off a late fightback from Hearts to defeat the leaders 3-2 at Easter Road.

Hibs were three up and seemingly coasting early in the second half after Kieron Bowie added to first-half goals from Jamie McGrath and the substitute Josh Campbell. But Hearts hit back through Lawrence Shankland and Cammy Devlin, setting up a grandstand finale in which Shankland and Beni Baningime were denied by Sallinger, as Derek McInnes’s side suffered their second league defeat of the season.

“I’m delighted to get over the line in the end,” said David Gray, the Hibs manager. “Everything I asked the players to do, they did, and we found ourselves 3-0 up. I’m really pleased with how we started the second half as well.

“This is the halfway point of the season, so we need to use this as a big opportunity and use all the positives from today to really kick on.”

The Hearts manager, Derek McInnes, said: “We didn’t do the basics well enough, it’s as simple as that.”

Rangers leapfrogged Motherwell into third with Thelo Aasgaard scoring the only goal of a lively game at Ibrox. Jack Butland in Rangers’ goal and his Well counterpart, Calum Ward, both made fine saves before and after the Norway international broke the deadlock in the 67th minute with a tap-in to end the Steelmen’s eight-game unbeaten run.

Rangers are nine points behind Hearts with a game in hand, six behind Celtic and two ahead of Motherwell, who had their chances to take something from Govan.

Dundee secured a potentially precious 1-0 over Falkirk at Dens Park thanks to a first-half penalty by Yan Dhanda. The Bairns enjoyed plenty of possession but could not capitalise even when the home substitute Simon Murray was sent off late on. Once the dust had settled, Dundee were still in 10th place but three points ahead of Killie and seven in front of Livingston.

There was a huge moment of controversy in the 24th minute when Duncan Nicolson showed a straight red card to Falkirk’s captain, Brad Spencer, for a challenge on Dundee’s Ash Hay. However, after being asked to review the incident by the video assistant referee, Nicolson changed his mind and showed Spencer a yellow card.