Durán And Nygren Fire Celtic Back To The Top

That is more like it.

Celtic beat Motherwell 2-0 at Fir Park on Sunday 11 October. Three defeats in a row are over. And the Hoops are back on top of the Scottish Premiership, two points clear of Rangers.

Durán sets the tone

It took nine minutes. Camilo Durán fired a low drive from outside the box past Alex Paulsen. Game on.

Two minutes later Durán nearly had another. Emmanuel Longelo cleared it off the line.

Paulsen keeps it close

Celtic battered Motherwell. Only one man stood in the way. Paulsen made a season-high 12 saves.

On 52 minutes he saved from Colby Donovan and Kieran Tierney in quick succession. On 57 minutes Mika Baur flicked one past him at the near post. It came back off the woodwork.

Then the breakthrough. Celtic broke fast and Benjamin Nygren finished it on 58 minutes. Kasper Høgh set it up. Paulsen had no chance.

He kept saving. He denied Durán again. He tipped away a Callum McGregor effort on 70 minutes. It should have been more.

Jota is back

The best moment of the lot came on 75 minutes. Jota came on for his return after 18 months out. Celtic fans will not forget that one.

Back to basics

The pressure on Martin O'Neill had been huge. He refused to quit during the break. This was his answer.

"We maybe just needed to get back to basics," O'Neill told Sky Sports. "Pressing and the ability to play the ball when we had it."

Tierney agreed. "That was much more like us," he said. "I think we could've taken a couple more chances to be honest."

Next up is Benfica away in the Europa League on Thursday. Bring it on.