Moussa Dembele notched his second hat-trick in a week as Caley Thistle crashed out of the Scottish Cup with a 6-0 defeat at Celtic Park.
Mikael Lustig put the Hoops ahead after 20 minutes before Moussa Dembele doubled the advantage in the final minute of the first half.
Dembele curled home his second five minutes into the second half before heading home the game’s fourth goal soon after as the Hoops booked their place in the quarter-finals of the competition.
Kieran Tierney added a fifth four minutes from time before Celtic captain Scott Brown blasted home a sixth in injury time to cap a miserable day for Richie Foran’s men.
Owain Fon Williams was back in goal for Caley Thistle having been replaced by Ryan Esson for last week’s 2-2 draw with Dundee, while Brad Mckay stepped in for on-loan Celt Jamie McCart, who was unavailable to play against his parent club.
The Hoops made two changes from the team that defeated St Johnstone 5-2 last weekend with Dembele, who netted a hat-trick at McDiarmid Park after coming off the bench as a second half substitute, and James Forrest returning to the line-up at the expense of Gary Mackay-Steven and Patrick Roberts.
Lunchtime matches normally take a while to get going and this one was no exception.
After a fairly bland opening period, Celtic made the breakthrough in the 20th minute with a superbly constructed goal.
Nir Bitton was the architect with an exquisite chipped pass over a static Caley Thistle defence allowing teammate Lustig to control the ball with his right boot before slotting beyond Fon Williams with his left.
Caley Thistle were fortunate not to be reduced to 10 men in the 35th minute when Ross Draper kicked Celtic captain Scott Brown off the ball – and right in front of referee Kevin Clancy – but escaped with only a booking.
A robust and poorly timed challenge from Iain Vigurs on Scott Sinclair only two minutes later saw the former Motherwell midfielder also shown a yellow card.
It looked like Caley Thistle would make it to the break only one down but Celtic struck again in the final minute of the half when Forrest cut the ball back for Dembele whose first-time effort squirmed under Fon Williams.
The punishment continued for the visitors five minutes after the break.
David Raven’s well-timed challenge halted Sinclair’s surge towards goal but the ball rolled perfectly for Dembele to curl home his second and Celtic’s third of the afternoon.
The 20-year-old Frenchman completed his hat-trick nine minutes later when Forrest darted past Brad Mckay before crossing for the unmarked Dembele to head home from eight yards out for his 26th goal of the season.
It should have been five soon after when a sloppy pass from Warren to Mckay was intercepted by Forrest but the Scotland international dragged his shot wide with the goal at his mercy.
But the Hoops weren’t done yet and added a fifth four minutes from time when Forrest grabbed his third assist of the day, crossing for Tierney to head home before Brown blasted home in injury to complete the scoring.