SPL Saturday October 25th

Celtic 4

Aberdeen 0

1:0 Larsson 4
2:0 Larsson 28
3:0 Sutton 45 pen
4:0 Larsson 55

Att: 59,598
MIB: Charlie Richmond

Celtic: Hedman Valgaeren Balde Varga Agathe Sutton Miller Lennon Thompson Hartson Larsson

subs
Gray for Lennon 60
Maloney for Thompson 60
Sylla for Agathe 68

The thin shaft of light that opened up at the top of the league after our visit to Ibrox has now become a vast ray of sunshine as Rangers' ever impressive form continues (two points from a possible nine). Thanks to their 0:0 draw at Livi Celtic had the chance to go five points clear, which they duly did, managing also to improve the goal difference in the process and becoming the league's top scorersinto the bargain.

Our habit of scoring early against Aberdeen continued, with Larsson popping in his first after a couple of minutes. After that the players seemed to sit back and wait for Aberdeen to collapse in a tear-stained heap, which wasn't too ridiculous given their recent performances here. But they rallied and actually managed to get into the Celtic half of the pitch once or twice.

All bets were off on the half hour, though, when Larsson took a leaf from the Shaun Maloney book and curled an outstanding free kick round the wall and into the bottom corner. The first half scoring ended when Aberdeen conceded a penalty that will definitely be filed in the drawer marked 'stupid'. Standing about a yard off the touch line Hartson didn't have a great deal on - there were certainly more red shirts than hoops in the box. So obviously it's time to whip the legs of the chubby Welsh lad and really set the seal on things. Sutton stepped up and, in a move which will hopefully end our recent 12 yard nonsense, cracked the ball in.

The second half was time for making pretty patterns with the ball, although we did score another. Sutton played Miller down the right, and his cross gave Larsson his hat-trick.

I know it seems a bit silly to say after two home games have given us 9 goals for, six points in the bag and no goals conceded, but we really have let both Hearts and Aberdeen off the hook a bit. We lost the whole show last year on goal difference, and we've just passed up the opportunity to really get some high numbers going. Time to get a bit mean with the teams that come to visit Celtic Park.