sport news Celtic 3-0 Livingston: Scottish Premiership leaders maintain nine-point lead ... trends now

There will inevitably come a night when Celtic will come a cropper in their own back yard. You just wouldn’t put a great deal of money on it happening any time soon.

One of the better sides in the Scottish Premiership over a number of seasons, Livingston ought to have represented a significant hurdle to Ange Postecoglou’s side as they close in on a second successive league title.

Yet their threat was dealt with in much the same way as a troublesome fly being swatted. The only consolation for David Martindale last night was that his side are not alone in that regard.

For all Postecoglou’s many laudable achievements since coming to the club, none is more impressive than the way his side have reclaimed their stadium as a domestic fortress.

Celtic have yet to lose a home league game under the Australian’s watch. In 31 encounters to date, they have won 28 and drawn just three.

By the time you add in six more games prior to Postecoglou taking the job, it leaves Celtic just one game shy of a season’s worth of unbeaten matches on their own turf. Aberdeen will travel there on February 18 much more in hope than expectation.

With form on the road equally as impressive, Celtic are succeeding in keeping Rangers at arm’s length. Postecoglou’s men went nine point ahead of their great rivals on November 12 and the gap has never changed.

They are just eating up the games. With two derbies to come, Rangers will retain hope of reducing the deficit to three points but it’s hard to see where else exactly Postecoglou’s side will shed points.

They were never in danger of yielding anything here from the moment Greg Taylor handed them the lead with a sumptuous strike just before the half hour mark.

Normally so resolute, Livingston showed little resistance as the game was taken away from them before the break.

Daizen Maeda claimed the second thanks to a wretched attempted clearance by Ayo Obileye.

Kyogo Furuhashi finished the contest with a fine finish in first half injury time. Now with 18 goals in 22 league games, and 21 in total, the formidable strike rate of the Japanese will ease the fears of supporters now resigned to the departure of Giorgos Giakoumakis.

It was a good night’s work for Celtic. With the win secure, the manager was able to give Oh Hyeon-gyu his home debut from the bench with Tomoki Iwata also given more minutes.

Introduced to the side together with Matt O’Riley, Maeda’s early forays down the left troubled Nicky Devlin.