Celtic vs Hearts – Betting Preview
On Wednesday night, two of the top three teams in the Scottish Premiership will face off when Celtic hosts Hearts.
With a 5-1 hammering of St. Mirren, Ange Postecoglou’s reigning champions maintained their nine-point lead at the top of the Premiership, while Hearts firmly established third place with a 3-0 victory against St. Johnstone at home.
Celtic Preview
Saint Mirren unexpectedly took the lead after Mark O’Hara’s sixth-minute penalty kick conversion, but Celtic rallied forcefully, scoring five goals in the second half through five different players to raise their overall score to 250 goals in 99 games under Postecoglou.
In their last 15 games across all competitions, Celtic has been exceptionally dominant, scoring at least two goals in each of those games.
Celtic has had goals scored by as many as 19 different players in the Premiership this season, easily the most in the division and five more than Hearts.
Since St Mirren’s improbable 2-1 victory at Celtic Park in January 2021, five months before Postecoglou’s tenure started, the Bhoys have not lost at home to Scottish opponents.
Hearts Preview
Robbie Neilson’s team returned to the Premiership with a brisk 3-0 success against St Johnstone at home on Saturday, allaying any worries that a lacklustre loss to Motherwell earlier this month may have caused.
Hearts kept a five-point lead over Edinburgh rivals Hibernian in fourth place with Josh Ginnelly returned from suspension and working devilishly with Lawrence Shankland.
Hearts have preserved three clean sheets in their previous four away games and have only given up 17 goals on the road this season, which ranks third in the Premiership.
Both sides produced a seven-goal thriller when they met at Tynecastle back in October, with Celtic prevailing despite allowing a Shankland hat-trick in what Postecoglou aptly dubbed a “cracking game”.
Hearts haven’t defeated Celtic away from home in the league since 2005, when Neilson was a member of the visiting defence that preserved a clean sheet against players like John Hartson and Chris Sutton. Neilson left the October encounter “glad of my guys,” but he was unable to win victory.
Hearts will host Celtic in the Scottish FA Cup on Saturday, the first of two games between the teams in four days.
1×2 Betting Odds
Let’s begin analysing the 1×2 market
Neilson vowed that Hearts will stick to their standard passing strategy while in Glasgow, but few teams in Scotland have been able to maintain possession of the ball against a Celtic team that averages 73% of the possession.
But they might not have it all their own way on Wednesday, Celtic is the clear favourite to extend their current winning streak of 11!
Their odds of winning stands @ 1.21.
The odds of winning for the away side stands @ 14.49.
The market odds of a stalemate stands @ 8.00.
Total goals over/under
Let’s check the over/under scenario
The odds that the total number of goals scored will be over 2.5, stands @ 1.40.
While the odds that the total number of goals will be under 2.5, stands @ 2.30.
The champions have now scored an incredible 82 goals in 26 Premiership fixtures overall this term.
And when Celtic last played Hearts, the Hoops scored four times in a seven-goal thriller against the Jambos and more excitement looks possible when the teams will meet again on Wednesday.
