Celtic’s Tynecastle Win Was So Comprehensive Even Neilson Has No Excuses Today.

If football gave out prizes for talking a good game, then Hearts wouldn’t even have needed to bother with the game today.

The organisers would have a stuck maroon ribbons on the Scottish Cup and dropped it off at Tynecastle. Sadly, for them, things are a little more complicated than that.

Sadly, for them, they actually have to win football matches.

From the minute the ball was rolling today there was not the slightest doubt about who was going to win the game. Our scoring after the second minute pretty much erased all doubt, but it was more than that.

We started like a roaring express train and they could barely get out of their half.

They managed to test Hart once, but the outcome was not in doubt.

Mooy was sensational. Kyogo proved that he is the consummate predator.

I thought Johnston showed that he’s a better player than Juranovic. Carter Vickers is the undisputed best centre back in the country, and the best Scotland has had in many years.

Celtic’s dominance in that much was so great that even Robbie Neilson had nowhere to go at full time but to praise us for it.

All we’ve heard lately from their club is how close previous games have been. Really?

Does that include the ones where we’ve given you a hiding?

Halliday spoke about this last week, deliberately overlooking the fact that they’d lost all the games he mentioned but more than that, leaving aside those where we’ve done them.

Today we absolutely done them.

He can’t deny it. His manager can’t deny it. Their fans can’t deny it.

Even those at Ibrox aren’t denying it; instead the discussion on their forums has turned to whether it’s better to get beat in the semi or the final itself; most want us in the semi just to get it over with so they don’t have to be there for the treble party.

Hearts now have only Europe to play for, but they are a club who should be used to that. We are heading for one of the biggest ends to a season in living memory, an ending which will confirm us at the biggest club in this country bar none.

Hearts would have been more bearable this past week if they had paid that the respect it was due instead of doing all that mouthing. In the end it didn’t help them.