ANOTHER cushy day for Celtic and some more impressive numbers for Gordon Strachan to conjure with. Celtic have now scored 13 goals in their last three matches and that figure would have risen to 15 had Shunsuke Nakamura not hit a post with a dazzling free-kick at the beginning and George Samaras not whacked a shot off another post at the end. In between, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Scott McDonald and a first for Andreas Hinkel saw Celtic home against a Hearts side who created plenty themselves but whose poor finishing brought to mind that old gag about the cow's backside and the banjo.

Celtic are now just a point behind Rangers. Judging on yesterday's performance they are in fighting form ahead of the Barcelona match on Wednesday night, almost literally. At 2-0 here, Artur Boruc and Stephen McManus exchanged some angry words, their little spat only broken up when Gary Caldwell intervened and told them to cop on to themselves. We've seen this kind of thing from Celtic before, of course, and it hasn't done them any harm. Boruc – who had a spat with Lee Naylor during the Spartak Moscow game in August – and McManus embraced at the end of a very satisfying afternoon. Friends reunited, by the look of it.

Pity Hearts. They came into this in what for them constitutes a dizzying run of success, namely three wins on the bounce and no goals conceded. But their victims – Gretna, Aberdeen and Hibs – don't possess the firepower of their hosts yesterday, they didn't have the rapier thrust of an Aiden McGeady, who created two goals, or the physicality of a Vennegoor of Hesselink or the ruthlessness of McDonald whose tally rose to 24 here, including six strikes in his last four games.

It was a funny sort of match. Celtic began superbly, then fell away and for a good 35 minutes Hearts were the dominant team, albeit one that possessed no finishing power up front. Where Hearts were profligate, Celtic were clinical, as they have been for some weeks, and as they'll hope to be again on Wednesday night.

Their initial breakthrough yesterday came early and, not surprisingly, McGeady's influence was stamped all over it. By and large, Hearts played the winger pretty well, crowding him out and double-teaming him at times. They reduced him as a force but they couldn't eliminate him. Hearts, for instance, had no answer to the dinky little chip McGeady put into the box in front of Vennegoor of Hesselink for the opening goal, the Dane getting there ahead of Banks and poking it home.

Frail would have feared the worst at that point. Instead of thinking of the 2-0 victory Hearts left here with in the CIS Cup in October, he may well have cast his mind back to the 5-0 drubbing he was subjected to in the league in August. As regards the Celtic players, it was hard to know what they were thinking, or even if they were thinking at all, for as soon they got themselves in the lead they fell asleep. "Sticky" was how Gordon Strachan described the next phase of the game.

Hearts has lots of possession, a few decent chances and yet no comfort. Andrius Ksanavicius, a clever little operator, started to buzz about the place and it was his cross that created some bother for Boruc, the goalkeeper rescued by a McManus clearing header from perilously close to his own line.

Celtic had become sloppy now and should really have paid for it just after the half-hour mark. Hearts had done excellently to snuff out the threat of a McGeady run, ransacking him of possession and countering with real pace. Celtic were busted wide open, Ksanavicius playing in Andrew Driver whose drilled shot was parried by Boruc. Andrius Velicka followed-up but could only rifle his effort into the side-netting.

The new half brought more Hearts threat. This time it was Nakamura who gave the ball away at one end and it was Driver who wasted the opening at the other. They would soon be made to pay for these wasted opportunities.

Just after Driver shot feebly at Boruc, Nakamura fired more purposefully at Banks, the goalkeeper pushing his shot out for a corner. It was Nakamura who took it and McDonald who headed it in. Of all the buckets of goals the Australian has scored for Celtic this season, this was one of the easier ones. McDonald might be a little guy but leave him alone in the penalty box, as Hearts did, and he will score every time, particularly when he's no more than spitting distance from goal. Hearts' marking was simply abject.

And their finishing got no better. Their build-up play remained decent, even at 2-0, but they were undermined again by their woeful inability to put the ball in Boruc's net. It was also at 2-0 that the goalkeeper and his captain had their falling out. If there was a tension between the two it was eased by the arrival of a third goal from an unlikely source. In fairness, Hinkel was assisted by some old reliables. Nakamura played the ball in from the right in the first place and then McGeady, spotting the German's run, touched the ball into the full-back's path. The finish was thunderous, a rare old blast from close-range that would have cut Banks in two had he the misfortune to get his body in the way.

Celtic will be missing the suspended Scott Brown on Wednesday night but that apart, they look in rude health.

Strachan shrugs off Boruc links to AC Milan and makes the most of a victory to savour

CARLO Ancelotti, the AC Milan manager, may have gone public with his admiration for Artur Boruc but Celtic opted to put a straight bat to a story linking the Pole to a £10m move to the San Siro.

"There has been no official approach," said Gordon Strachan when asked if anything was happening in relation to his goalkeeper, which didn't exactly blow the story out of the water, not now we know that Ancelotti is a Boruc fan and not since Celtic would bite the hand off any manager who was to offer anything like £10m for Boruc's services.

If Milan have not yet made a bid for Boruc then everything about Ancelotti's tone in the interview, given to a Polish newspaper, suggests that he will. "We are looking at Artur Boruc very carefully and we have been for at least a year already," said Ancelotti. "It (Milan's interest] should not be a surprise because he belongs in the very top group of European goalkeepers. There is no such thing as a Carlo Ancelotti wish-list but what we do have is a group of footballers who we feel are AC Milan footballers and Boruc's name is on that list."

After signalling a desire to leave Glasgow, Boruc ended up signing a new contract with Celtic early last mont
h that does, in theory, keep him at the club until 2011. This, though, was more a marriage of convenience than a long-term commitment. Should a big offer come in for him there is an understanding that the contract will be ripped to shreds with both Boruc and Celtic's chief executive Peter Lawwell doing the ripping. Doing business with Milan, especially for the kind of money suggested, would have huge mutual benefit. It would be, for all parties involved, a win-win scenario.

This one has a way to run but Strachan had other things on his mind yesterday, principally the lauding of his team after another comprehensive victory. "Terrific," he said, in describing the performance. "We were playing against a team today that have found good form recently, who are not conceding goals. We feel good about ourselves after this. Nobody held anything back (for Wednesday night] and I liked that."

Taken from the Scotsman