Iheanacho out-muscled Ryan Astley to control fellow substitute Marcelo Saracchi\u2019s cross and fire home the winner from six yards. 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. 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\u2019s 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
Iheanacho\u2019s return to scoring form after major hamstring problems could be a timely boost for Martin O\u2019Neill given it is now 12 games since a starting centre-forward scored for Celtic.<\/p>\n
That was Tomas Cvancara in a 2-0 win over Falkirk. The Czech also scored off the bench against Motherwell but missed a series of chances at Dens Park.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill has also tried Junior Adamu, Iheanacho and Daizen Maeda up front but the Japanese forward has not scored since January 10 and also squandered a good opportunity at Dens.<\/p>\n
Celtic made early strides down the left with Maeda and Kieran Tierney and the pair combined to set up the opener.<\/p>\n
Cvancara forced a save from the left-back\u2019s cross and Yang followed up to knock the ball over Jon McCracken. Benjamin Nygren tried to take the ball off his toes but Yang got the final touch.<\/p>\n
Celtic remained on top for much of the first half but Cvancara in particular was wasteful.<\/p>\n
The on-loan Borussia Monchengladbach striker hit a post with his best chance after being played clean through by Maeda\u2019s pressing. He also hit a weak shot straight at McCracken and took the wrong option from another two opportunities.<\/p>\n
Maeda was also played through but could not beat McCracken, who also saved Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain\u2019s volley. Maeda and Yang were inches away from connecting with Nygren\u2019s ball across the face of goal and Donovan came close from long range.<\/p>\n
Cvancara was also presented with a good chance early in the second half but took a heavy touch.<\/p>\n
Viljami Sinisalo made a couple of routine saves from Cameron Congreve before having to face Murray, who sent the Celtic goalkeeper the wrong way from the spot.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill immediately replaced Cvancara with Iheanacho but the visitors found it harder to break Dundee down after the equaliser.<\/p>\n
Yang had a header tipped over and substitute Luke McCowan shot wide from 20 yards but clear chances were hard to come by before Iheanacho delivered what felt like a big moment in Celtic\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
Astley was sent off two minutes later for bringing down Yang as the winger burst on to a long ball towards goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iheanacho out-muscled Ryan Astley to control fellow substitute Marcelo Saracchi\u2019s cross and fire home the winner from six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5082,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-384179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-celtic-fc","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384179","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=384179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}