Arne Engels scores first Celtic goal as league leaders beat Hearts to maintain perfect start

Celtic have defeated Hearts to maintain their perfect start to the season with their sixth win from six games in all competitions.

Arne Engels marked his first start for the club with a goal from the penalty spot to put the league leaders ahead early in the second-half.

Fellow January signing Luke McCowan was also on target as he scored late on to secure a 2-0 win and put another three points on the board.

It’s now 15 points from the first five games in the league for the reigning champions as they aim to make four-in-a-row.

At the other end of the table pressure continues to build on Steven Naismith after the Tynecastle club, who are without a single win this season, fell to their seventh consecutive defeat that leaves them rock-bottom of the Premiership,

Celtic started on the front foot and the first chance of the day fell to Engels after a good run and cross by Alistair Johnston, but the Belgian’s effort failed to hit the target.

Kyogo and Daizen Maeda also had early chances before Reo Hatate forced a good save from Craig Gordon.

Record signing Engels, named in the starting line-up for the first time following his move from Augsburg, came close again but was denied by woodwork as his shot cannoned off the post.

It was one-way traffic for the first half-hour but when Hearts did manage to get an attack the ref pointed to the spot for a penalty after the ball ricocheted off Liam Scales in the box after a James Penrice corner.

But the official overturned his decision after being called over to the VAR monitor to review the incident.

The visitors had a good spell after that as they started to put pressure on the Celtic backline.

Kyogo had a sight of goal up the other end after some tidy build up play by the home side, but the forward scooped his ambitious shot over the bar.

Lawrence Shankland then tried his luck from distance with a shot from around 30-yards out that was on target all the way but well saved by Kasper Schmeichel.

Celtic had another opportunity to break the deadlock as the first-half was drawing to an end but Gordon denied Kyogo from close range before Penrice did well to block Kuhn from the rebound when the winger looked certain to score.

It was all level at the break after an eventful first 45 minutes in the east end of Glasgow.

Celtic got themselves in front early in the second-half after they were awarded a penalty for a Penrice handball.

Johnston fired the ball into the box and it deflected off the defender’s arm before going out of play.

The referee was called over the monitor again and pointed to the spot after a quick review and Engels stepped before putting the ball into the bottom corner to make it 1-0.

Then in the last minute of the game McCowan secured the win with his first goal for the club to make it 2-0 in the last minute of normal time.

Adam Idah then had the ball in the net in injury-time but his strike was ruled for offside after a VAR check.

Celtic will now turn their attention to Slovan Bratislava when they get their Champions League campaign underway on Wednesday.