Hearts' title hopes shattered as rampant Celtic ease to victory

NEIL Lennon last night showered his Celtic players with plaudits for a crushing 4-0 defeat of Hearts he says was inspired by the hype surrounding the Tynecastle club in the build-up to the match.

Celtic produced one of their most impressive displays of the season to maintain a five-point lead over Rangers at the top of the SPL table. The reigning champions, who have two games in hand on Celtic, stayed in touch with a 2-0 win over Hibs at Easter Road.

Hopes that a genuine three-horse title race may be developing were dimmed as Hearts suffered their first defeat in 12 league games against Lennon's rampant team who are now ten points clear of the Gorgie club.

"I thought a lot of talk going into the game was about Hearts," said the Celtic manager. "There is a lot of negativity about our team. Even on Saturday, when we beat Aberdeen, people were just talking about the last 15 minutes being frantic for us. No-one spoke about the positive things we did. That was used as a motivation tonight.

"There was a real hunger about the players, there was also a real motivation there from having lost to Hearts at Tynecastle in November. The players did everything asked of them.

"I thought we were absolutely tremendous from start to finish. There were some brilliant individual performances but as a collective, they were excellent. There was a real intensity to their play.

"A result like this has been coming. Our level of play in recent weeks has been very good but we haven't been putting teams away. But it all came together tonight. That was our best home performance of the season and we produced it against a very confident team.

"It's only three points, we won't get carried away, but we'll enjoy tonight. The players set a benchmark tonight. They are a young team but we asked them to be men tonight and they did that. We could have scored more goals than we did."

Hearts manager Jim Jefferies lamented the manner in which his team, 1-0 down at half-time to a James Forrest goal, crumbled in the second half as an Anthony Stokes double and a Paddy McCourt strike saw Celtic romp to victory.

"I suppose we are relegation candidates now," said Jefferies with a wry grin. "Celtic scored two quality goals and then two shockers from our point of view which could have been avoided.

"The last 20 to 25 minutes was a shambles, we could have lost more goals than we did. We lost a horrendous third goal, you could have driven a double decker bus through our central defence. We were sloppy in that last 25 minutes, which is unusual for us, having defended so well in our previous dozen games or so. But we didn't do the job right tonight, we tried to be too smart and were punished.

"It's hard to be critical, because we were always going to suffer a defeat along the way. It is about how we bounce back from this now. We have to forget about it, it was one game which didn't work out for us. We never spoke about the championship. We are just going to try and have a good season."

Lennon, meanwhile, gave a cautious response to speculation linking Celtic with a bid for Derby County winger Kris Commons, whose prospective move to Rangers appears to have broken down over the player's personal terms.

Walter Smith, the Ibrox club's manager, said last night: "That one's finished, by the look of things." Earlier, his assistant Ally McCoist had said: "We've made him an offer. He's had an offer from somewhere else which is more beneficial to him. So unfortunately I don't think he'll be joining us."

Asked if Celtic had bid for Commons, Lennon replied: "Not as far as I'm aware. He is an option. He's a name who has been linked with us for a while. I know him from my time at Nottingham Forest. I know he is a decent player and he has been having a good season for Derby. But I'd rather talk about the game tonight. If and when a player comes in, I'll talk about him then."