False Dons 0 Joy Bhoys 3
Sensational champs ram Aberdeen’s trash talk down their throats with stunning performance
work from the gallivanting Tierney. This time he tricked his way around Shay Logan before fizzing a magnificent ball across the face of goal for Dembele to provide the killer finishing touch.
The jeers that rang out from the home fans on the stroke of half-time spoke volumes. This big-billing, top-of-the-table showdown was fizzling out into a non-event.
Within seconds of the restart Armstrong had the chance to kill it stone dead but carelessly shot straight at Lewis after being teed up cleverly by Dembele on the edge of the box.
Armstrong tried to return the favour, sending over a delicious cross for the striker at the end of a driving, 60-yard run. But Dembele was an inch or two away from connecting and heading home into an empty net.
At the other end Aberdeen were doing a fair deal of huffing and puffing in trying to press Celtic deeper into their own territory but without ever looking like eating into the deficit.
If anything, they were even more suspectable now to Celtic’s rapid counters. Rogic should have finished one of those raids off but shot across the face of goal.
Seconds later Arnason made a miraculous lunge to clear from Dembele on the goalline after Lewis had clawed out a curling shot from Forrest.
Aberdeen were in danger of being cut to shreds and when McInnes reacted by sacrificing Rooney for Scott Wright it looked like an attempt at damage limitation.
It didn’t work. With 63 minutes gone Armstrong floated a free-kick to the back post where Boyata was running around a cluster of bodies to head back across goal for Dembele to nod home from close range. Game over now.
This was Celtic’s eight successive win over Aberdeen in league and cup. You can almost hear them saying already before the next one: “No-one but no-one beats this Aberdeen side nine times in a row.”
IF it’s going to happen anywhere then it will probably happen here, they said. We’re certainly not afraid of them, they said. Not us. Not a chance.
But no sooner had the trash talking stopped last night at Pittodrie than Aberdeen’s bullish promises were being shown up for exactly what they were – another load of false Dons.
It wasn’t their fault. Not really. Aberdeen were simply outclassed and outgunned by a Celtic side which arrived in the north east determined to lay down yet another marker.
But just when Derek McInnes and his players seemed to have convinced themselves they might be ready and able to threaten Celtic’s title defence, they found themselves on the wrong end of a tanking from the champions so emphatic in its nature and so brutal in its delivery it will have left the home side feeling painfully inferior. And, yes, perhaps even a little bit silly.
They didn’t so much as lay a glove on Brendan Rodgers or his players, far less stop them from stretching out three points clear at the top of the table.
In fact, pretty much all Aberdeen’s big pre-match talk managed to do was fire the champions up for one of their most impressive performances of the season so far.
From the moment Kieran Tierney smashed home a stunning opener this main event became as one-sided a contest as this pair have served up since last season’s League Cup Final.
And a double either side of the break from Moussa Dembele sealed match No.61 without defeat for a Celtic side able to give one or two of its star turns a night off on the sidelines. As if just to prove a point.
That Rodgers would opt to freshen up his starting 11 was pretty widely expected. That this spate of juggling left Scott Sinclair and Patrick Roberts dropping on to his bench, not so much.
Leigh Griffiths was told to take a seat also but, given that Dembele was ready to take over in attack, this was a relatively straightforward swap.
Filling in for the other two would not be quite so simple even though it meant James Forrest was returned to Celtic’s right flank. On the other side, Callum McGregor filled in for Sinclair.
By comparison, Derek McInnes didn’t require quite so much tinkering. His only change was enforced by the terms of the loan deal of Ryan Christie, with stalwart Andrew Considine rolled back out into Aberdeen’s defence.
But by deploying Stevie May and Adam Rooney in a two-pronged attack, McInnes still appeared to catch Rodgers – and just about everyone else inside Pittodrie for that matter – on the hop. This was most certainly a bold approach form the Aberdeen boss and one that seemed to unsettle the visitors.
As Celtic opened up looking strangely hesitant, twice Graeme Shinnie came pounding forward, rocking the champions on to the back foot with two blistering drives from distance.
Celtic keeper Craig Gordon dealt well with both but this was a positive start.
But it would not last long. Less than 13 minutes in, Celtic found their passing groove for the first time and with one, slick surge they stormed into the lead.
It began with Dedryck Boyata’s accurate probe into the feet of Tom Rogic who spotted Dembele darting off into his peripheral vision – and with a deftness of touch flicked it into his path with his left boot.
Dembele was off, scorching past Kari Arnason and driving the ball across the face of the goal.
McGregor couldn’t reach it in time but that merely allowed Tierney to meet it at full throttle and the full-back did not break stride as he thundered a first-time drive in off the underside of Joe Lewis’s bar.
And it rattled the life out of the home side who seemed not to know how to respond. Suddenly, rather than trying to get at Celtic, they seemed content to shadow their runs and often to man mark them across midfield.
All of which left them lopsided at times and vulnerable at others.
Lewis had to save one snapshot from Rogic and Stuart Armstrong came close with a free-kick but before McInnes could get his men inside for a pep talk they were two down after more superb