Kelechi Iheanacho’s first goal in six months saw Celtic cut the gap on William Hill Premiership leaders Hearts to three points as they ended their troubles in Dundee with a 2-1 win at Dens Park.<\/p>\n
Iheanacho out-muscled Ryan Astley to control fellow substitute Marcelo Saracchi’s cross and fire home the winner from six yards.<\/p>\n
The 82nd-minute goal ensured the third-placed champions took advantage of Hearts dropping two points at bottom club Livingston earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
Celtic had lost in all three previous trips to Dundee this season and looked like they might slip up again when Simon Murray equalised from a VAR-assisted penalty in the 57th minute.<\/p>\n
Steven McLean ultimately pointed to the spot after Astley hit a bouncing ball off the outstretched arm of Colby Donovan.<\/p>\n
Dundee had rarely threatened before then and had fallen behind when Yang Hyun-jun got the final touch in an eighth-minute attack.<\/p>\n
Celtic missed a series of chances before the leveller but Iheanacho’s long-awaited goal was soon followed by a red card for Astley as the visitors made the three-way title fight as tight as it has been all season.<\/p>\n
Hearts reclaimed their status as William Hill Premiership leaders but missed the chance to restore their three-point cushion.<\/p>\n
The Jambos had been knocked off the top for the first time since September after Rangers edged ahead of them on goal difference by defeating Dundee United on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Although they ended the weekend a point clear at the summit with six games to play, there was a huge sense of frustration among the 7,000 travelling supporters at Almondvale after the Edinburgh side dropped points for the fourth away game in succession.<\/p>\n
Goals from Hearts strikers Lawrence Shankland and Claudio Braga had overturned Stevie May’s early opener, only for the Lions to equalise through Lewis Smith.<\/p>\n
And Hearts finished the game with 10 men as Marc Leonard saw red in added time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kelechi Iheanacho’s first goal in six months saw Celtic cut the gap on William Hill Premiership leaders Hearts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-383600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}