Scottish Premiership roundup: O’Neill hails Celtic and crowd after Dundee United demolition

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Normal service was resumed at Celtic Park as Celtic secured a 4-0 win over Dundee United and their first clean sheet since Martin O’Neill’s previous game in charge. Two first-half goals in five minutes, from Yang Hyun-jun and Arne Engels, sent Celtic on their way as O’Neill returned to the dugout in style after Wilfried Nancy’s brief but disastrous reign.

Substitute Benjamin Nygren grabbed his 11th goal of the season and Daizen Maeda netted on the rebound to equal Celtic’s two biggest league wins of the season. Both of them were in O’Neill’s caretaker spell in charge, which resulted in seven wins from eight games.

Celtic enjoyed 78% possession and had 22 shots at goal to the visitors’ three. Their opponents averaged 12 shots during Nancy’s tenure and Dundee United managed 17 during their 2-1 win over Celtic at Tannadice less than four weeks ago.

“It was delightful. We played really well in the game and in the end we won quite convincingly,” O’Neill told BBC Scotland.

“The players have to do the playing and it’s been a strange old week. I’ve come back in again, perhaps to haunt them as much as anything else, but the players did brilliantly, absolutely brilliantly. It’s a boost of confidence as much as anything else.

“The crowd were magnificent. Even moments when we were poor they kept with us. Today was great, there was a nice atmosphere. Now, being in a dog fight for the championship, we need the crowd behind us.”

Kieron Bowie earned Hibernian a point in a 1-1 draw with Motherwell. After a first half that struggled to get going, the match burst to life after the break. Motherwell’s Tawanda Maswanhise grabbed his 15th goal of the season when he finished off a devastating counterattack in the 52nd minute, but Bowie levelled in the 69th minute from six yards out.

Falkirk boosted their top-six hopes with a 2-0 win at St Mirren, who suffered a third straight defeat. Finn Yeats broke the deadlock after 55 minutes with a superb curling effort from 25 yards and Calvin Miller made the points safe six minutes later.

Neil McCann began his Kilmarnock reign with a 1-1 draw at relegation rivals Livingston, who are four points behind them at the bottom of the table. Connor McLennan put Livingston ahead on the stroke of half-time, but were denied a second win of the league campaign by Marcus Dackers 20 minutes from time.

On Sunday, leaders Hearts are at Dundee while Aberdeen host Rangers.

Rangers beat the Dons 2-0 at Ibrox on Tuesday and the Aberdeen defender Mats Knoester thought there were enough signs of encouragement to suggest his team, who remain under the interim charge of Peter Leven, were capable of getting a more favourable result in the rematch.

The Dutchman said: “If we can finish at least one or two of these very big chances and don’t allow them to score so easy in a set piece, then it can be a whole different game and a whole different picture also from the outside.”