Mark Atkinson reports from Celtic’s 3-0 win over Hibs.
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00:00Full time here at Celtic Park where it's finished Celtic 3 Hibs 0 in the William Hill Premiership.
00:07The scoreline probably doesn't tell the full story. Celtic were actually a level or two beneath their usual standard
00:13yet still ran out countable winners and end the day 9 points clear at the top of the Premiership
00:19due to Aberdeen's one-all draw with St Johnston.
00:23However they gave Hibs plenty of early Christmas presents at Celtic Park
00:28the visitors passing up three really good chances, two from Nikola Kukarevic
00:34that were one-on-one's guiltiest chances that he failed to convert
00:39and the Ukrainian actually came off not long afterwards with an injury.
00:42In total Hibs had 9 shots on target which is pretty rare for a Scottish team here at Celtic Park
00:48and in fact Kasper Schmeichel the home goalkeeper was given the Man of the Match award
00:53which again tells its own story.
00:55Brendan Rodgers the Celtic boss made five alterations to his team
01:00he gave starch to Arne Engels and Luke McEwan and Liam Scales
01:04Cameron Carter-Vickers, Kyobu Furuhashi and Rio Hatate left out of the starting 11.
01:10Engels opened the scoring actually quite early on but the Belgian wasn't at his best
01:14McEwan was fairly quiet, in fact Celtic probably put in one of their poorer performances of the season
01:20yet got one of their more straightforward scorelines on the board.
01:24For Hibs they played well in defeat but it's a bad afternoon for them
01:29they're bottom of the table again after Hearts won 2-0 at Dundee
01:32and their game against Ross County next weekend really does look like a huge encounter for David Gray and his team.
01:38Celtic by contrast have bigger fish to fry, Rodgers made changes to his starting 11
01:43so that he can keep the team fresh for two massive matches next week.
01:47Danny Mozart came away with the Champions League
01:49followed the Premier Sports Cup Final against Rangers a week on Sunday
01:54Rodgers will hope that generosity is in shorter supply than it was here
01:58it didn't matter though in this particular match where it finished Celtic 3 Hibs 0.