Celtic completed their inevitable procession to the Scottish title yesterday when they beat Inverness Caledonian Thistle 4-1.

The victory, inspired by Gary Hooper’s double, left second-placed Motherwell, who won 3-1 at Dundee United on Friday, 15 points behind the Glasgow club with only four games remaining.

Celtic, who have now amassed 44 Scottish league championships, have coasted to the title more easily than last year given old foes Rangers were demoted to the bottom tier before the season because of financial problems.

Rangers, a world record 54 times Scottish champions, won the fourth tier last month.

Celtic have 72 points from 34 matches and will go into the Champions League qualifying rounds next term hoping to better their achievement of reaching the last 16 this season.

Fans had to wait until the second half to start the party with third-placed Inverness stubbornly refusing to bow to their far more illustrious opponents.

The breakthrough came just past the hour mark when Hooper was played in by Kris Commons and produced a cool finish.

Five minutes later Joe Ledley swept in the second before Hooper’s neat flick at the near post made the result safe.

Georgios Samaras added some late gloss with a fierce shot in off the crossbar and not even a late reply from Aaron Doran could dampen the celebrations.

Other result
St Johnstone vs Ross County - 2-2