Resilient Celtic time run perfectly to win race after eight-month chase

Celtic lift Premiership trophy after dramatic final day

For eight months Celtic chased Hearts at the top of the Scottish Premiership. Eight months, a game of catch-up for 32 games, 2,880 on-field minutes, 48 hours.

They stayed in the fight, somehow. Kicking and screaming, they won matches they looked like they weren't going to win, dug out key goals in the dying seconds, triumphed over their own mediocrity at times, driven on by Martin O'Neill.

Somewhere in the city, somebody is chiselling away at a statue of the 74-year-old. Somewhere in the city you hope, also, that security people are poring over footage of Celtic fans on the pitch.

The invasion was an outpouring of emotion but it careered so far over the line as to be an outrage. An investigation will be launched; swift and with proper punishments, you'd hope.

Certainly, Hearts staff were enraged. They got on their bus and got out of there as fast as they could. They deserved a whole better than that. We'll be hearing plenty more about those scenes.

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But this was O'Neill's piece de resistance - his moment, his day.

Last-day dramas are nothing new to him. In a previous life at Celtic Park he lost two titles in the last match of the season. This one went to the wire as well. Of course.

Only a dozen minutes of normal time remained in this season to end all seasons - Celtic were drawing, which meant that Hearts were winning. They piled forward, the late-goal kings of Scotland, the 90th-minute heroes, but nothing was sticking.

With 11 minutes left, Kelechi Iheanacho hit a post. With 10 to go, Benjamin Nygren forced a dramatic save out of Alexander Schwolow.

Time ticked on, slowly. Hearts were champions with nine minutes to play, eight minutes, seven minutes. Six, five and four minutes on the clock and Hearts were winning the league, smashing to smithereens that established order; history-makers, epoch definers.

From their first league game under Brendan Rodgers and onwards - through the turbulence of O'Neill part one, the calamity of Wilfried Nancy and then O'Neill part two - Celtic had been playing for 57 hours since the start of the season.

Yet it took until three minutes from the end of the 90 here for them to get their nose in front and score the goal that ultimately won the title.

There's leaving it late - then there is this. Daizen Maeda was the man again. Maeda and the comeback boy Callum Osmand, who delivered the cross for his Japanese team-mate in his first game since early November. Resilience, in other words.

Maeda has been an electrifying force these past weeks; full of energy and bite and goals. He came alive when his team needed him, scoring in each of his past five league games. Seven goals in that run.

The man was in tears afterwards, utterly spent, completely overcome.

Celtic celebrate after clinching title on dramatic final day

For much of the day, Celtic had been true to their season-long form, lacking in threat, creativity and accuracy. Hearts coped with them easily for the longest time.

After more than half an hour, Celtic had registered zero shots on target and had just two touches of the ball in Hearts' penalty area.

So far, so good for the wannabe disruptors. And then, so much better. Lawrence Shankland's back-post header put them ahead. It was their first attempt on target all day. It had to be Shankland. The captain, the inspiration, the totem of Tynecastle.

Celtic needed two goals now. Arne Engels provided one of them from the penalty spot - no argument this time. O'Neill brought on Iheanacho for the second half and he made a difference. Later, Osmand appeared, and what an impact he had.

All the while, Hearts men were dropping. Beni Baningime was invalided out of the action, and in rapid fire Michael Steinwender, Stephen Kingsley and Alexandros Kyziridis went down. They carried on, but they were struggling, pushed back all the time by the gathering menace in green and white.