Stefan Scepovic – Celtic.Stefan Scepovic – Celtic.

Celtic leapfrogged Kilmarnock into fourth place in the Premiership with a 2-0 win over the 10-man Ayrshire side at Parkhead yesterday.

Swedish striker John Guidetti scored his fifth goal in seven games in the 35th minute with a 25-yard free-kick awarded when Killie skipper Manuel Pascali’s ‘last man’ foul on Stefan Scepovic earned him a red card from referee Willie Collum.

It was the turning point in a match in which hitherto Killie had been the equal of their hosts.

Killie manager Alan Johnston sacrificed his mercurial midfielder Alexei Eremenko for defender Lee Ashcroft and thereafter the Ayrshire men concentrated their efforts on keeping the champions at bay.

However, Scepovic scored the second in the 63rd minute and the Hoops ran out easy winners although the extra man advantage they enjoyed for a large part of the game makes proper analysis tricky.

Celtic manager Ronny Deila conceded the game turned on Pascali’s dismissal.

Deila said: “The first 20 minutes was played out in the midfield, then we got more control of the game and the red card changed the whole match.

“From there, we controlled it and did well. The positives are strikers scoring and I don’t think Kilmarnock really had a chance.

“Guidetti and Scepovic showed they can play together and we have to get them more matches.

“They are both dangerous. We are going to get a lot of goals from those two at Celtic.

“Wednesday is another important match and we look forward to it.”

Visiting boss Allan Johnston revealed that Pascali felt “devastated” by his sending-off.

Johnston said: “We started well, looked dangerous and created a few chances. The sending-off changed the game.

“I’ve not seen the video but it looked like a sending-off. Pascali was gutted to have done that in such a big game.

“We had to change the game plan, we came here to play – you could see that in the first 35 minutes – but in the second half it was two banks of four and trying to hit them on the counter-attack.

“It was always going to be difficult but they did great.”

  P W D L F A Pts
Hamilton 11 7 2 2 19 7 23
Inverness 11 7 2 2 15 8 23
Dundee Utd 11 7 1 3 19 13 22
Celtic 10 6 2 2 22 7 20
Kilmarnock 11 6 2 3 14 10 20
Aberdeen 11 6 1 4 17 15 19
Dundee FC 11 4 4 3 14 13 16
Partick 10 3 2 5 13 13 11
St Johnstone 11 3 1 7 7 14 10
St Mirren 11 2 2 7 10 18 8
Motherwell 11 2 1 8 6 19 7
Ross County 11 1 2 8 9 28 5

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