I watched Celtic beat Hibs and noted Maeda love affair, return of key figure and peculiar atmosphere

Martin O’Neill’s side looked to be limping towards a disappointing draw after playing more than 50 minutes with a man advantage courtesy of Jamie McGrath’s early dismissal.

Daizen Maeda’s opener was cancelled out by a controversial Joe Newell equaliser before the break. Celtic huffed and puffed after the restart and it took until the 72nd minute for the visitors to bag the match-winner as Nigerian international Iheanacho made an instant impact off the bench.

Lewis Anderson was at Easter Road to cover proceedings for The Scotsman and he picks out some of the main talking points:

Maeda continues Easter Road love affair

Iheanacho will rightly grab the headlines at a venue where Celtic have habitually struggled at in the past, but his strike partner Daizen Maeda made sure he extended his love affair with Easter Road by scoring on his third straight visit to Leith. The Japanese forward has rediscovered his scoring touch and recently moved into double figures for this season. He is beginning to hit top form at just the right time for Celtic, who have struggled to turn chances into goals all season.

As for match-winner and proven striker Iheanacho, he displayed excellent awareness in a crowded penalty box to net the decisive goal. It’s expected Martin O’Neill will continue to utilise him as an impact sub in the remaining push for silverware and on current form there’s every chance he could become a real cult hero in the eyes of the Celtic faithful. Three points are all that matters at this stage of the season and more big moments like this over the coming weeks will only strengthen his connection with the fanbase.

Johnston shines on return to starting XI

Alistair Johnston made an immediate impact on his return to Celtic’s starting XI for the first time since October in the capital. The Canadian international offers so much both offensively and defensively. He oozes quality in possession of the ball, but also isn’t afraid to produce some lung-bursting runs up and down the right-hand side.

He was heavily involved in much of Celtic’s positive attacking play here, firing a low ball across for Maeda’s opener and dragging opposition defenders out of position to create space for his team-mates.

After a 20-minute cameo against Falkirk last weekend, this marked another significant step in his battle to regain peak fitness and it’s clear on this evidence how influential a player he will be for Celtic in their bid to secure a domestic double.

Hibs suffer dose of deja vu

Four red cards in three games. Hibs continue to shoot themselves in the foot and are putting their own hopes of European football at risk. It was uncharacteristic of McGrath to lunge in late on Alistair Johnston after 21 minutes, a moment of madness and a silly tackle that earned him a straight red card.

To Hibs credit, they battled bravely again with ten men, but David Gray will know they must keep 11 on the pitch if they are to secure fifth place at the very least.

What next for Hibs?

It’s been a testing couple of weeks for Hibs. The pre-match chat before this game centred around whether Gray’s side and their fans could contemplate a win that might offer their bitter Edinburgh rivals Hearts the incentive to clinch their first league title since 1960.

This was a peculiar day in the capital. The lack of atmosphere from the home crowd may have contributed to their poor start, with empty seats dotted all around the stadium for what was a crucial fixture in the race for European qualification.

Only three games remain, starting next weekend away to Falkirk who are now breathing down their neck. Hibs are seven points shy of last season’s tally of 58, which was enough to earn them third place. However, this has been a middle-of-the-road campaign that could end up seeming far worse should they miss out on Europe and Derek McInnes leads their city neighbours to the title.

Gray reckons his team’s ill discipline in recent games now leave them with an uphill battle to try and catch Motherwell in fourth place. “Oh, it's definitely costing us,” he sighed. “I think it's very difficult to win games, especially this level of opposition we're living in. So to do it with 10 men for as long as we did, to try and do it, makes it extremely difficult. The week before, to try and win with nine men, for another 40 minutes or whatever it was, 45 minutes, extremely difficult.

“I said it last week, we're beating ourselves. And today, clearly I can't sit here and say if we kept delivering on pitch, we would have won the game. Who knows what would have happened? But we're certainly making it much more difficult for ourselves.

“The door was slightly open because of the results yesterday with the Motherwell game, for us to try and capitalise on that. We never done it. The Aberdeen game, we didn't do it. So the games are running out. I'm not naïve enough to think that that's alright, or that they're going to be okay. We're still very much aware of the challenge it faces us.

“We're now back in a situation where we're relying on Motherwell. For us to catch them, they need to drop points, and we'll probably need three wins. Now, more importantly than that, we've got Falkirk breathing down their neck, trying to catch us, the same as we're trying to catch Motherwell. And we need to make sure we go into that game and try and get three points there, because last time we went there, it wasn't a great performance from our point of view.

“We certainly want to atone for that. But it'll be a really difficult game because, like I've already said, everyone's got something to play for. We're back in a situation now where we need to make sure we've got no more slip-ups available.”