Celtic make it ten on the spin over hapless Aberdeen side

ABERDEEN 0 CELTIC 2

ABERDEEN’S lamentable history against Celtic – they last defeated them in February 2016, when Ronny Deila was in charge at Parkhead – continued with a 10th successive loss to the champions, for whom Moussa Dembele and Kieran Tierney scored late in each half.

Dembele put the visitors in front with a header in the 37th minute before Celtic were reduced to 10 men in the 76th minute when right-back Mikael Lustig was sent off after being shown a yellow card for the second time.

However, Aberdeen’s hopes of salvaging a draw were ended in the 83rd minute when Tierney finished a classic breakaway with a powerful strike to take Celtic nine points clear of Rangers at the top of the table.

Dons substitute Sam Cosgrove was shown a straight red card for a lunge at Scott Brown just after Celtic’s second goal.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers claimed his skipper was on the wrong end of a “naughty challenge” by Cosgrove but was happy with the way his side coped when down to 10 men and with Tierney’s clinically executed goal.

He said: “We have a plan when we go down to 10 men. We did it before at Hamilton. The players understand the shape of the team when we go down to 10.”

As for Tierney’s goal, Rodgers added: “Lots of players would just hook the ball away but young Odsonne (Edouard) takes a touch, plays it out and then the speed of the four players breaking forward was great.

“Kieran wins the race, a great pass by Moussa and he shows why he is the quickest player in our squad. Officially.”