Celtic welcomed back Jackie McNamara to the sarting eleven, incidentally, during McNamara's absence, we lost seven goals in three games.
Hibs' players had been moaning about Celtic's apparent lack of sportsmanship after our 2-1 defeat at Easter Road recently, and Celtic were out to punish the Edinburgh side for their over-reaction to the win. From the kick off it was clear there was going to be a slaughtering.
It took Celtic only 4 minutes to get going, Chris Sutton finished nicely from a John Hartson pass.
Hibs, to their credit, came out attacking, and Rab Douglas pulled off another fantastic save, this time from Tam McManus.
Referee Alan Freeland showed up how bad Scottish refereeing really is. Freeland missed many niggling kicks and fouls from Hibs' young thugs in the making. Scott Brown showed himself up as a bampot of the highest order throughout the game, trying to play the hardman.
On 43 minutes, Hibs were brought down to ten men, when Riordan was sent-off for a two footed tackle on Jackie McNamara. The challenge probably only merited a yellow card, but the referee had to do something about Hibs' late tackles.
It was the same old story from a Bobby Williamson team, he sends his players out to kick Celtic off the park, Celtic prove too smart for them and the riot begins. John Hartson added Celtic's second goal, heading home a superb cross from Alan Thompson.
The second half proved to be a damage limitation exercise for Hibs, but the Hibees didn't make a great job of it. Henrik Larsson was brought down in the box by last man Colin Murdock who amazingly wasn't sent off for the foul. Chris Sutton cooly chipped the penalty kick home.
Celtic's next chance came when Henrik Larsson failed to score from a free header, about 6 yards out. But the King was instumental in Celtic's fourth goal, he passed to Big Bad John, who side-footed home his second goal of the afternoon. Larsson then added his name to the scoresheet, when he was clean through on goal, on 68 minutes.
Stan Petrov added the score up to six, and Liam Miller was unlucky with a beautiful cip near the end of the game.
Six goals scored and none conceded sets us up nicely for the forces of darkness' visit next week, but you get the feeling today could have been double figures if Celtic had been bothered.
That'll teach them to beat us!
Celtic:
Douglas - 8
Balde - 7 (Wallace - 6)
Mjallby - 7 (Beattie - 6)
Varga - 7 (Miller - 80
Lennon - 8
McNamara - 8
Thompson - 7
Petrov - 7
Sutton - 9
Larsson - 7
Hartson - 7
Celtic-Mad Man of the Match: Chris Sutton