Celtic thrash Hearts 7-1 after two early goals

Celtic thrashed Hearts 7-1 at Celtic Park, scoring twice in the opening 10 minutes and exposing the visitors’ defensive weaknesses in a damaging afternoon for their hopes of challenging for the Scottish title. [1]

Liam Scales opened the scoring with a header from a corner before Kieran Tierney made it 2-0. Dane Murray then helped set up Benjamin Nygren for Celtic’s third, and Callum Osmand added a fourth before half-time. Mika Baur, Laurent Mendy and Tomas Magnusson scored after the break; Hearts’ goal made it 4-1.

Hearts had more possession and more shots than Celtic, according to the BBC’s match statistics, but struggled to turn that into danger. Celtic repeatedly exploited space behind a high defensive line, while errors from the visitors helped create further goals. [1]

BBC Scotland chief sports writer Tom English described Hearts’ approach as reckless and said their away record gave little reason to expect a sustained title challenge. He also cautioned that Celtic must build on the result over the season ahead. [1]