Celtic continue relentless pursuit of Premiership title with 17th consecutive win

Celtic piled on the agony and put on the style in a ruthless first half at Rugby Park as they beat Kilmarnock 4-1 to continue their relentless pursuit of the Premiership title.

The league leaders have now won 17 games in a row in all competitions and remain 12 points clear of second place with only six games to go as they also smashed through the 100 league goal barrier.

The last time they recorded 17 wins in a row was in the 2016 invincible treble season under Brendan Rodgers and Ange Postecoglou’s men are now only six games away from matching Jock Stein’s record of 23 on the spin.

Some Kilmarnock fans had seen enough after 20 minutes and started leaving as it became obvious it would be a case of damage limitation with Celtic on top-form.

Goals from Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and a double from Matt O’Riley made it 4-0 after half an hour with the two in a row champions in waiting also having time to miss a penalty as the Killie backline collapsed.

Germany World Cup winning legend and current South Korea manager Jurgen Klinsmann was a surprise visitor to Ayrshire when he took his seat amongst the crowd in the hope of getting a glimpse of Oh who started on the bench.

Kyogo opened the scoring with a typically clinical finish for his 29th of the season and Celtic’s 99th league goal after eight minutes and it was an uphill struggle for Kilmarnock from then.

His international teammate Daizen Maeda made it 100 league goals for the champions when he double the lead less than five minutes later and it already started to look like it was going to be case of how many.

It was 3-0 before the game was even 20 minutes old when Matt O’Riley slammed his third goal of the season past Sam Walker.

Kyogo had a chance to make it four when the Hoops were awarded a penalty but the 28-year-old struck the post despite sending the keeper the wrong way.

But the floodgates had been well and truly opened when O’Riley struck again to make it 4-0 on the half-hour mark.

Liam Donnelly pulled one back for the hosts on the stroke of half-time but by the horse had already bolted in terms of taking anything from the game.

Oh was handed the chance to impress his new international manager when he replaced Kyogo at half time.

Celtic struggled to replicate the same intensity in the second half and Postecoglou made a string of changes with Aaron Mooy, David Turnbull and 17-year-old Rocco Vata brought on for O’Riley, Maeda and Callum McGregor as the captain was given a rare break.

Killie came closest to scoring in the second 45 but his effort was well saved by Joe Hart who had an otherwise quiet afternoon in Ayrhsire.

Celtic are now on 102 goals for the season, six behind their best under Rodgers, nine behind their post-war record of the 111 scored by the Lisbon Lions in their historic 1966/67 season, and 14 behind their all-time record of 116 from over a hundred years ago in 1916, with six games still to go.

But they are still 30 goals behind the all-time league record of 132 goals set by Hearts in their league winning campaign of 1958.