Venue: Celtic Park                                                             Date: 26/12/24                                                             Time: 15:00

Motherwell were powerless to prevent a Celtic rout as the Glasgow side ended the day with a twelve point lead at the top of the table. 

Aston Oxborough was the guilty party as he caught an oncoming Yang Hyun-Jun to gift Celtic a penalty minutes before the first half ended which Arne Engels duly converted to open the scoring. 

Celtic’s unrelenting pressure continued to pay dividends when Daizen Maeda doubled the home side’s advantage, reaching Liam Scales’ glancing header first with a headed ball of his own. 

Perhaps more fortunate with their third, Oxborough could do nothing when Nicolas Kuhn’s shot from outside the penalty area was deflected by Kofi Balmer. 

Reo Hatate added the cherry on top as he mazed past Motherwell’s defenders to fire in the fourth and final goal of the evening.   

An ever present Maeda came close to breaking the deadlock early on, when he found himself in the path of McGregor’s deflected shot but couldn’t get the beating of Oxborough. 

Calamity soon followed when the Japanese forward attempted to slot the ball past the keeper but was denied by an outstretched leg as bodies flew in to deal with the follow up, the visitors able to clear their lines. 

Maeda was once again involved to cut a low ball across to Idah but the striker’s attempt lacked the conviction to give his side the lead. 

Motherwell came close when Marvin Kaleta’s header from a cross was accidentally saved on the line by his teammate and former Celtic player Tony Watt. 

Engels was dangerous on set pieces throughout but his free kick in the second half could not dip in time to test the man between the posts. 

Line-ups: 

Celtic: K. Schmeichel, G. Taylor (Alex Valle 78′), L. Scales, C. Carter-Vickers, A. Ralston, Paulo Bernardo (R. Hatate 63′), C. McGregor (c), A. Engels (L. McCowan 72′), D. Maeda, A. Idah (K. Furuhashi 63′), Yang Hyun-Jun (N. Kuhn 63′)

Substitutes: K. Furuhashi, R. Hatate, N. Kuhn, L. McCowan, L. Palma, V. Sinisalo, A. Trusty, Alex Valle, S. Welsh

Motherwell: A. Oxborough, S. Blaney, K. Balmer, D. Casey, E. Wilson, L. Miller (c), H. Paton (S. Nicholson 72′), M. Kaleta (S. O’Donnell 79′), T. Maswanhise (Jair Tavares 79′), T. Sparrow (A. Halliday 63′), T. Watt (A. Stamatelopoulos 63′)

Substitutes: M. Ebiye, L. Gordon, A. Halliday, K. Hegyi, S. Nicholson, S. O’Donnell, A. Stamatelopoulos, D. Zdravkovski, Jair Tavares

Referee: Ross Hardie