Goals from Emilio Izaguirre and Stefan Scepovic got the new year off to a winning start away to Kilmarnock.
Aberdeen had won twice since Celtic’s 0-0 draw at home to Ross County to put pressure on Ronny Deila’s side for the trip to Ayshire.
With Celtic opting out of playing St Johnstone at the weekend some excitable types had the hoops falling seven points behind as they enjoy the sunshine of Gran Canaria but that notion was never likely as Celtic started on the offensive at Rugby Park.
On another night Kris Commons would have repeated last season’s hat-trick at Kilmarnock with two efforts off the crossbar before Izaguirre opened the scoring ten minutes from half-time.
The visiting support had to wait till the 71st minute before Scepovic secured the win with Deila delighted by the way that his side played.
“It was a good performance, particularly in the first half, and we scored two good goals,” the Celtic boss said. “I think it was a very good answer from the players.
“I have said all the time that I believe in them and this performance shows what is in the group. It was the right response after Ross County when we had domination but didn’t create enough chances.
“Today we had a better tempo and created the chances we needed to win the game.
“We are back on track again. We are going to continue winning games and if Aberdeen do the same then it is going to be a tight race all the way to the end.
“But we are going to do our job, we can speak at the beginning of April, with six or seven games left, about who is challenging for the title.”
