Hamilton Academical 1-2 Celtic
- Published
Highlights: Hamilton Academical 1-2 Celtic
Callum McGregor and Leigh Griffiths scored as Celtic beat Hamilton to move to within one win of securing a seventh successive Premiership title.
McGregor's smart finish in the third minute put the champions ahead after Moussa Dembele missed an early chance.
Rakish Bingham levelled after slackness from Kristoffer Ajer, but Accies lost Darren Lyon to a second yellow card.
Leigh Griffiths nodded home Scott Sinclair's cross within a minute of the restart as Celtic strolled to victory.
The result took the champions 13 points clear of second-placed Rangers with five games left, as all Scottish Premiership teams now await their post-split fixtures.
Accies - who have a game outstanding against Kilmarnock next Saturday - remain four points above Ross County in the relegation play-off spot, and five clear of bottom side Partick Thistle.
Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers said before the game he wanted a performance and a tempo from his players to build towards next week's Scottish Cup semi-final against their Old Firm rivals.
With that in mind, he decided to leave recently-returned goalkeeper Craig Gordon out of the squad because of the artificial surface.
The home side also made a change in goal. With Gary Woods picking up a knock during the week, manager Martin Canning favoured Ryan Fulton.
Six seconds after kick-off, Fulton was forced to block a shot from Dembele after his defence completely switched off to allow the Frenchman through on goal. It was a warning the Hamilton back-line failed to take heed of.
Minutes later, Patrick Roberts, starting for the first time since November after recovering from a hamstring injury, twisted and turned on the right before finding McGregor, who fired low off the post and into the net from 16 yards.
Hamilton scored a surprise equaliser via Rakish Bingham, but it was a rare bright spot for them
With dominance in possession, a second Celtic goal should have followed, but they huffed and puffed and after 18 minutes the home side were level, completely against the run of play.
Bingham raced onto a high ball over the Celtic back three, outmuscled a hesitant Ajer and lashed it past Bain. It was simple but effective stuff.
Celtic shifted gears again and piled the pressure back on. Five minutes before the break, Accies were reduced to 10 men after Lyon was booked twice in the space of two minutes.
Card number one came after a late challenge on Kieran Tierney, and the second again involved the Celtic full-back. This time Lyon pushed him to the ground and referee Andrew Dallas pointed him towards the tunnel. It appeared harsh but was probably the correct call.
With Ben Nevis now turning into Everest, Accies boss Canning shuffled his pack for the mountain climb ahead.
But directly after the break, Celtic regained the lead through interval substitute Griffiths and it was demoralisingly simple from a Hamilton point of view.
Scott Sinclair picked the ball up on the left-hand side and his cross was met by the head of Griffiths, who nodded home his 13th of the season - plus two for Scotland - from six yards out.
Leigh Griffiths headed home his 13th goal of the season for Celtic
The match quickly settled into what looked like an attack versus defence training ground exercise.
Hamilton packed their 18-yard box and Celtic continued to pour forward looking for ways to penetrate.
In an extremely rare foray forward, Georgios Sarris almost headed Accies level from a Danny Redmond corner, but it was no more than a brief respite from Celtic dominance.
In the end, despite the late introduction of Charly Musonda, the champions simply ambled their way to another win, but one that takes them a step closer to a seventh consecutive title.