Celtic stay thirteen points clear with five-star display as the visit to Ibrox looms.

Celtic got back to winning ways after a midweek draw at Livingston with a pulsating 5-0 demolition of hapless St.Mirren.

It’s been a forgettable season for the Buddies who have spent the majority of the term close to the bottom of the pile and their attempts to sit in and contain the champions on Saturday proved ill-considered as Celtic dominated the game and ripped the visitors apart with some wonderful give and goes in the final third.

The star man was, of course, Leigh Griffiths who proved beyond a doubt that he’s back with a fabulous hattrick.

He scored twice in the first half with Edouard dinking in a fine ball to the back post that caught the Paisley side napping and it was an easy finish for his striking partner to open his account for the day on 18 mins.

A minute before half time Griffiths produced his second when he jinked inside the box and played a one-two with Tom Rogic before finishing off the inside of the post past Vaclav Hladky.

Nine minutes after the restart Edouard tuned magnificently on the edge of the box to finish with aplomb and score his 28th goal of the season.

But it was that man Leigh Griffiths who got the fourth and his third with a wonderful left-foot low drive past the saint’s keeper on 74 mins.

Hatem Elhamed made his long-awaited return to action in the final ten minutes and was tripped in the box seconds into injury time by Sam Foley which led to a penalty that was duly dispatched by Callum McGregor for the midfielders thirteenth goal of the season.

So a pretty good day at the office then with a rout of a normally combative and robust team who are now locked into a relegation battle with Hearts and Hamilton Accies.

The following day Rangers huffed and puffed to a 1-0 win over Ross County up in Dingwall and will now face German cracks Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday night in the Europa League.

It’s a sore one that we still aren’t in that tournament but the advantage is that we have a full eight days to prepare now whilst an already bedraggled Rangers team must negotiate a match with one of the Bundesliga’s form teams and then face up to us only 62 hrs later.

It doesn’t always work out this way but we really should be looking to take the game to them and put them on the back foot from the get-go considering the form we’re in not to mention how badly they have struggled over these past few months but also because they should be dead on their feet.

I’ll write up a full preview through the week but needless to say, I’m confident and I think with very good reason.

We’re in electric form and with the likes of Elyounoussi and Elhamed back to full fitness and available not to mention the incredible resurgence of Griffiths upfront and his exciting partnership with Edouard we look a really strong proposition at the moment and hold all the aces.

Bring it on.