Celtic vs Motherwell. Scottish Premiership.
Celtic ParkAttendance54,159.
Saturday 15 October 2016 17:41, UK
Celtic consolidated their four-point lead over main Premiership title challengers Aberdeen with a comfortable 2-0 win against Motherwell.
Scott Sinclair scored his seventh league goal in eight games and Moussa Dembele added a late penalty to give the Hoops victory.
The home side started strongly and almost opened the scoring on six minutes when Stuart Armstrong took a cutback from Cristian Gamboa and hit a shot on the spin which bounced inches wide of the far post off Motherwell defender Stephen McManus.
Celtic were then denied (17) when Kieran Tierney clipped the ball inside to Dembele and the striker turned to curl a shot towards the corner, but Craig Samson made a diving save to his left.
From the resulting corner the Motherwell goalkeeper again had to be alert to push a net-bound header from Erik Sviatchenko over the bar at full-stretch.
But Samson could do nothing to stop the ball a minute later when James Forrest delivered a low cross into the box and Sinclair arrived behind Dembele to dispatch his shot high into the net from 15 yards.
Sviatchenko again caused problems at a corner when the ball broke to him off skipper Scott Brown and the Hoops defender crashed a shot on the turn just over the target.
Motherwell had struggled to get out of their own half and their only attacking move of note ended with Craig Gordon comfortably saving a low shot from Richard Tait on 33 minutes.
Brown then released Dembele four minutes later and the striker stepped inside a Motherwell defender and curled his shot past Samson, only to be denied by the post.
And seconds before the interval Tierney held off a challenge from Scott McDonald on the left touchline and weaved his way into the Motherwell penalty area before blasting a shot against the crossbar.
Seven minutes after the break Samson again thwarted Celtic when he clawed away a deflected drive from Brown and was quick to block the angled follow up from Dembele.
Forrest was next to test Samson on 65 minutes when he took on two defenders and hit a swerving drive from 25 yards which the 'keeper spilled, but there were no takers arriving for the rebound.
Celtic continued to press for a second goal with Forrest and Dembele combining to set up a chance for Sinclair, whose first-time shot was tipped over by Samson.
But the Hoops were finally rewarded for their pressure when Dembele was brought down by Samson and he picked himself up to send the stopper the wrong way with a composed penalty three minutes from time.
