Celtic narrowed the gap at the top of the table to a single point after nine-man Rangers suffered a surprise 2-1 defeat at St Mirren.
Rangers shocked by St Mirren as Celtic cut gap to one point
Celtic narrowed the gap at the top of the table to a single point after nine-man Rangers suffered a surprise 2-1 defeat at St Mirren.
Elsewhere in the SPL there were wins for Hearts, St Johnstone and Inverness, while Dundee United came from behind to pile more anguish on Hibernian.
Rangers had been hoping to at least maintain their four-point lead at the summit heading into Christmas and opened the scoring at
St Mirren through Lee Wallace, but Lee McCulloch's dismissal midway through the first half turned the game.
Aaron Mooy and Paul McGowan fired St Mirren ahead, before Dorin Goian was sent off late on for a second bookable offence to complete a miserable afternoon for Rangers.
Celtic took full advantage of their rivals' slip-up to notch an eighth straight SPL victory, with Georgios Samaras scoring twice in a 2-1 home win over
Kilmarnock.
Motherwell remain third in the standings but suffered a 2-0 defeat at Tynecastle as Ian Black and Stephen Elliott struck for
Hearts.
Fourth-placed
St Johnstone bounced back from a run of three straight losses to leave
Dunfermline bottom at Christmas with a 3-0 success at East End Park.
Hibernian are just above Dunfermline after surrendering the lead against
Dundee United to lose 3-1, with Jon Daly's double doing much of the damage.
Roman Golobart and Gregory Tade were on target for
Inverness as they overcame
Aberdeen 2-1 in a battle between two sides languishing in the bottom four.
