Scottish Premiership: Celtic and Rangers go into winter break with wins

Within the first six minutes, Matt O’Riley scored and assisted as Celtic easily defeated 10-man St Mirren

3-0. With two games remaining, Rangers trails Celtic by eight points heading into the Christmas break in

Toyosi Olusanya of St Mirren was sent off in stoppage time of the first half after hitting Joe Hart, the

Celtic goalkeeper, in the face with a high boot.

The champions had gone ahead after 56 seconds when O’Riley collected Callum McGregor’s pass and

played the ball inside the St Mirren wing-back Scott Tanser for Maeda to run on to and beat Zach

Hemming. O’Riley soon had his 10th league goal of the season. Luis Palma fed Paulo Bernardo’s run into

the box and the Portuguese midfielder spun past Alex Gogic and teed up O’Riley, who sidestepped

Tanser and slotted the ball home through Hemming’s legs.

St Mirren’s only first-half effort was an off-target strike from Olusanya, who later went in with a raised

boot as Hart punched the ball clear. The referee, David Munro, initially booked the forward but was

called to his monitor by VAR and upgraded it to a red.

In the second half, Hemming made a brilliant save from O’Riley shortly before Bernardo’s beautiful

lofted pass set up Taylor to volley home from six yards on the hour.

Rangers quickly swept away their Old Firm frustrations with a 3-1 win over Kilmarnock at Ibrox. The

loss to Celtic was a first defeat for the manager, Philippe Clement, but late first-half goals from Ross

McCausland and Abdallah Sima gave them a commanding lead. Kilmarnock fought back and Danny

Armstrong reduced the deficit on 58 minutes with a penalty awarded after a VAR intervention. However,

Todd Cantwell soon restored the two-goal cushion.

Kenneth Vargas and Lawrence Shankland scored second-half goals as in-form Hearts held out for a 2-1

win at struggling Livingston to tighten their grip on third place. Hearts, whose top scorer Shankland

had a penalty saved at 0-0, endured a nervy finale after Livingston pulled one back through an Andrew

Shinnie spot-kick in the 79th minute.

In a 2-2 draw with Motherwell, Elie Youan scored a late goal to salvage a point for the home team

Hibernian. After Youan’s opening goal was cancelled out by Theo Bair and Bevis Mugabi, it appeared as

though the visitors would win handily. However, Youan’s shot reached the net thanks to a deflection,

giving Hibs a point in additional time.

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